


Black Widow: From Brooklyn With Love

by Wonderlander090



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Origin Story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Black Widow Rosa, Crossover, Espionage, Gen, Heist, Implied Relationships, Red Room (Marvel), it is 99 percent action, seriously do not read for the ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 12:04:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13387431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderlander090/pseuds/Wonderlander090
Summary: Rosa Diaz thought her past was dead and buried somewhere out in the Siberian tundra.  But when Natasha Romanoff shows up at the 99 with a smile and a bundle of secrets, she knows she has no choice but to finish what Red Room started.--AKA the Black Widow!Rosa AU y'all didn't know you needed.





	1. Prologue: Tantsory

**Author's Note:**

> So this is still evolving as I write it, so pay attention to rating/tag changes. I also started this before Rosa came out as bi on the show (HALLELUJAH), so her relationships may be subject to change throughout the writing. Enjoy!

   _The spotlight was bleak and harsh as the Siberian winter, bleaching the stage around her like bone.  A lone violin wailed in the distance, its forlorn song both familiar and alien.  Rosa was locked in place, her arms frozen with one aloft and the other extended beside her, her head turned demurely and her feet in perfect fifth. This wasn’t right; the others should be here. She never danced alone._

_“VASYA!” the girl screamed, struggling feebly against the arms locked around her throat.  She was young, so young, blonde curls falling across her pixieish face as she fought vainly to free herself from the giant holding her. “Vasya, help me!”_

_Rosa spun around to face her, one arm already thrown out as though she could stop him from fifty yards away. Her feet caught, twisting unnaturally beneath her, and then there were knives strapped by the handles to the bottom of her slippers, the blades nearly a foot long and the points digging into the stage as she wheeled and wobbled. Not the knife points. She hated the knife points._

_“Dance, Vasilisa.” Madame Rostova said, standing before her with hands folded primly behind her back. “Carefully, now. A cut so deep may not heal in time.”_

_“Get off me!” The girl lashed out, slamming her elbow into the side of her attacker’s head.  He didn’t so much as flinch.  “Vasya, please!”_

_“I killed you,” Rosa said through numb lips.  “You can't hurt her.  I killed you.”_

_“Vasya!”_

_Madame smiled with thin lips as the blood from her bullet wounds spread across her chest. “Dance.”_

_Rosa danced.  She needed no music; the motions had been drilled into her muscles since she was a little girl.  She dipped at the waist, straining forward even as the blades beneath her wavered perilously. Graceful, always graceful.  Anything less than perfect control implied weakness, and weak girls did not survive here for long.   Back up again with her arms held high and feet snapping out into second.  Small movements, never lifting one foot for too long, balanced perfectly with her eyes locked on the struggling girl before her. As long as she was moving forward, she could reach her.  Her feet should be screaming in agony, but she felt nothing at all.  As long as she was in motion, she would not fall._

_“Bourrée,” Madame said, and Rosa propelled herself sideways on the points of her knives, taking skimming little steps across the stage with her arms outstretched and her breath frozen in her chest.  The violin was louder now, others swelling alongside it, rising and falling like sobs in her ears.  She could barely hear the girl’s cries over the cacophony, and the faster she moved, the farther away she seemed.  The stage light flared, blinding her, and one of her feet nearly slipped disastrously._

_“Déboulés,” Madame said, and she spun forward, scraping quick little half-moons into the floor in a desperate attempt at friction.  She kept her eyes forward, whipping her head to keep the girl in her sight, but the lights were too bright and she was moving too fast, the world blurring out around her.  She spun past a barre, covered in shackles.  A sniper rifle with a metal hand at the trigger.  A little redheaded girl with serious eyes and a knife behind her back.  A man clawing at his throat with bulging eyes and purple lips.  A teenager snapping a neck between her thighs. Faster and faster, harder and harder until she couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t see anything but black and red and the hideous white of the spotlight._

_One knife snagged on a seam in the floorboards, and she fell._

_“NO!” the girl screamed, reaching out to her even as the giant’s grip tightened still further.  “LEAVE HER ALONE!”_

_There was blood on the floor, but Rosa couldn’t feel a thing; she dragged herself forward, frantic, the knives screeching horribly behind her as she made a futile attempt to stand.  Madame loomed over her, expression cold and clinical._

_“Please,” Rosa said, looking up at her with the taste of blood and bile in her mouth.  “Please.”_

_Madame shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Vasilisa. You failed.”_

_The man gave an almighty wrench.  The girl jerked and went limp, sliding lifelessly to the floor._

 

   “KATYA!” Rosa Diaz sat bolt upright in her bed, snapping the pistol from beneath her pillow and jerking it out in front of her.  There was nothing there.  Of course there was nothing there, she was in her apartment.  Chest heaving, she checked the clock: 4:58AM.  Two hours till dawn.

   “Rosa?” Adrian mumbled drowsily, rolling halfway over to crack one eye open in her direction.  Both of them had ceased to be alarmed by drawn weapons in bed long ago.  “What’s wrong?”

   She forced herself to lower the gun.  The landlord would probably kill her if she blew another hole in the door.  “Nothing, babe. Go back to sleep.”

   Adrian shrugged, fumbled around blindly for her hand, and pressed a kiss to the palm before immediately beginning to snore.  Some of the tension seeped out of her shoulders, and she ran her fingers lightly through his hair as she tried to catch her breath.  He never said much when she woke up screaming, which if she was honest was one of the more pathetic reasons she loved him.  He wasn’t stupid, he had to have noticed something; it was one of the reasons she had fought against moving in together for so long.  It was one thing to insist her family was dead to her and maintaining friendships distracted from the job; it was harder to explain why she’d sworn in Russian when she burned herself on the stove.  But Adrian hadn’t asked, and then she hadn’t asked when he woke up screaming, and so they had settled into a routine of comfortable, intimate silence.

 _She’s dead,_ she told herself harshly, tucking the gun under her pillow and settling back down with her eyes open. _She’s been dead for ten years, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Move on already._

   Sometimes she thought she had.  Sometimes she felt fully at home in her job, her home, her skin for the first time in her life.  And then the nightmares would come or she’d catch the glint of a sniper scope in a window and she’d remember that Rosa Diaz was just a mask. She wasn’t even sure what was underneath it anymore.

   One of the other girls had suggested running away once, a lifetime ago in the dead of night.  Vasya had been terrified by the very talk; Katya, however, had simply shrugged.   _We’ll never really be rid of them,_ she’d said. _Even if we all band together and burn it to the ground. They spun their webs in our brains when we were children and we’re so tangled up in them that we’ll never be free._

   She’d told her it wasn’t true, back then. But now, thirty years old and nearly five thousand miles away, Rosa was starting to believe that Katya was the smartest of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE: I take intellectual property very seriously, and completely forgot to give credit where credit is due in this chapter. The dream sequence (and in some ways the entire fic) was inspired by Javier Pérez's installation piece "En Puntas", which can be viewed [here](https://vimeo.com/66721776). I apologize to everyone and Pérez specifically, and would highly recommend you check out the clip. Thanks!


	2. Posetiteli

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've never posted an incomplete fic before, and while I have a rough outline for the rest of the fic, I haven't actually written it out. I'm going to plan for posting one chapter once a month, but since the prologue was so short I thought I'd post Chapter 1 as well. Enjoy!

   Jake Peralta had voluntarily gone to the gym three times in his life. The first had been in a rare blaze of determination at sixteen which had amounted to five minutes on the rowing machine and a broken finger. The second was at twenty-two after a particularly bad break-up, making the rash decision that the burn of his muscles couldn’t hurt worse than ache in his heart. (Incidentally, he had been wrong.) The third was after a long night’s talk with Amy, and her quiet admission that she worried about his health and wanted him around as long as possible. If it meant more time with his favorite person ever, he was willing to do just about anything.

   Then again, if getting healthy meant keeping up with Rosa twice a week, maybe he was better off dying of a butter-infused heart attack at thirty-five.

   “Damn, Rosa,” he gasped, massaging his chest and watching his breath crystallize in front of him as they staggered toward the precinct. “What, did you get possessed by a demon that could only be exorcised by making every muscle in your body cry at the same time?”

   “It’s called ‘cardio’, Jake, and believe it or not there are people who do it almost every day without crying,” Rosa said, but they both knew she was hedging. Sure, Rosa usually went hard, but today was next-level even for her; she had walked straight past the treadmill and yoga mats to the sparring ring and proceeded to beat the ever-living hell out of a boxing dummy for the full hour. He’d even seen her whip out her baton at some point, only to look around shiftily, put it away, and go back to launching a full-body assault against her hapless victim. He hadn’t seen her like that since early days of the Academy.

   “Is . . . everything okay?” he asked hesitantly, and then braced himself for the punch on the arm that never came. Instead Rosa sighed, yanking open the door and holding it for him as they entered the precinct.

   “Didn’t sleep well last night,” she muttered, which was the closest he’d ever gotten to a straight answer from her. “Needed to clear my head.”

   “Ah.” He had no idea what to say to that. “That’s exactly how I clear my head. Well, you know, if four hours of He-Man reruns doesn’t cut it.”

   To his great satisfaction Rosa actually laughed, looking marginally less broody as she started for the stairs. “You get any leads on that B&E, by the way?”

   “Well, we talked to those witnesses and – nope, no, that’s not happening.” Jake’s knee nearly buckled as soon as he tried to climb a single step, and with a roll of her eyes Rosa hauled him off toward the elevator. Holt joined them just as the doors slid shut.

   “Good morning, detectives. Peralta, nice to see you on time for once.”

   “Yes, well, punctuality is very important here at the NYPD, as is physical fitness,” Jake said, puffing out his chest proudly.

   “Is that why you’re currently doing what appears to be a wallsit?”

   “Nope, tried to lean against the wall and my legs gave out, I’m about two seconds from collapsing on the floor.”

   Rosa grabbed him again, dealing Holt a sardonic look. “Go easy on him, Captain, he ran a whole mile this morning.”

   “I must admit I’m impressed. Perhaps I’ll tag along tomorrow and see how you’re faring.”

   “I’d really rather you didn’t,” Jake grunted. The doors dinged open, and Holt sauntered out with a chuckle. Fully aware of what he was in for if he let himself be carried into the bullpen, Jake forced himself to find his feet. “Thanks, Rosa, but I got it from here.”

   “Suit yourself,” she said, and dumped him unceremoniously onto the floor. He managed more or less to bounce back to his feet, bounding out after her just before the doors closed on him. See? Give him five more years and he’d be running laps around her.

   Rosa, however, had stopped dead, eyes locked on the bullpen with the look of someone who’d just woken up tied to railroad tracks. “Oh, god.”

   “Hello, Rosa.” The woman smiled, somehow warm and distant all at once. She was pale and pretty as a porcelain doll, with high cheekbones, full lips and moss-green eyes that seemed to cut through anything she looked at. Her hair was a deep, burnished red, falling in gentle waves over one shoulder. Her winter coat and sweater were casual but expensive, and there was something about the way that she held herself and the secretive quirk of her mouth that was undeniably reminiscent of Rosa. “It’s been a while, huh?”

   “Um, Rosa?” Gina stage-whispered from her desk. “There’s a smokin’ hot redhead sitting at your desk, real hot, kind of mysterious, won’t say why she’s here, very attractive, every time I try to get a real answer out of her all that comes out of my mouth is this ‘uhhhhh’ noise? Any of that ringing a bell?”

   Rosa was still blatantly staring, looking genuinely thrown in a way that Jake had never seen before. “Yeah,” she said, recovering but never looking away from the redhead’s face. “Guys, this is Natalie Rushman, my . . . sister.”

   There’s no sound quite like roughly thirty jaws hitting the floor at the same time. “I’m sorry, your what?” Jake asked.

   “My sister,” she repeated forcefully, glaring around as if daring anyone to ask the obvious question of how a proud Latina and the whitest white chick possible could be related by blood. Hitchcock opened his mouth, and her eyes snapped over to him. He closed it.

   The sister in question let out an airy little laugh. “Adopted sister,” she said smoothly, lifting herself off the desk to offer a hand to Holt. “My family took her in when we were both young. Captain Holt, I presume?”

   “Why are you here, Natalie?” Rosa asked before Holt had a chance to respond. “It’s not a good time.”

   “Nonsense, Diaz,” Holt said, shaking the hand offered to him and looking at her in reproval. “It’s rare we get to meet one of your relatives, and we always have time for family here at the Nine-Nine. I assume you two would like a moment alone?”

   “Yes, please,” Natalie said, her eyes flickering over to Rosa. “I really am sorry to bother you, but this couldn’t wait. It’s about Mom.”

   Rosa lifted an eyebrow, which Jake knew was Rosa-speak for being utterly shocked. “Fine. Captain, could we use the conference room?”

   “Of course. Take all the time you need.” He indicated the empty room, and Rosa stalked over without a backward glance. Murmuring thanks and shooting a brief smile at the rest of the precinct, Natalie followed her.

* * *

    “Sister?” Natasha said archly, locking the door behind her. “You’re slipping.”

   “What are you doing here, Natalia?” Rosa hissed, advancing on her with her fists clenched. “You cannot just stroll in and blow my cover whenever you feel like it, this is my _job_.”

   “I know, that’s why it took me so long to find you.” She dealt her a sardonic look. “Gotta say, never took you for a cop.”

   “You were supposed to take me for dead.” She crossed her arms, dealing a shifty glance back out into the bullpen. “How did you find me?”

   “Death seems oddly temporary nowadays,” Natasha said with a shrug. “I’ve seen enough ghosts walking around lately not to trust a death certificate and a newspaper article. I am impressed you managed to keep your cover intact without leaving the precinct. Seems like a lot of people would know right where to find you.”

   “They did. Sort of.” Her lips twisted grimly. “Nobody ever made it back to Moscow to sound the alarm. After a while they just stopped coming. I figured they had bigger fish to fry.”

   “They did.” Natasha produced a file from seemingly nowhere and slid it along the conference table. Rosa visibly tensed, regarding the photo stapled to the cover like a cornered animal.

   “Been a while since I’ve seen one of those. That Madame Rostova?”

   Natasha nodded, looking down at the file with a crease in her brow. “Apparently S.H.I.E.L.D.’s not the only one who’s been cleaning house. Over twenty former Red Room agents haven’t been seen in public in months. Rostova’s listed as missing in action, last known location New York. You know anything about that?”

   Rosa dealt her a stony look for a long moment, chewing on the inside of her lip, but finally relented. “I killed her. My sergeant somehow managed to track her down and bring her to the precinct, wanted to give me a lesson on like ‘positive reinforcement’ or some crap.”

   Natasha actually smiled. “That may be the most colossally misguided thing I’ve ever heard.”

   “I know, right?” Rosa snorted. “She came in, played nice, then had five goons jump me on my way home that night. I headed her off at JFK and got two rounds through her chest. As far as I know she was listed as a Jane Doe in some morgue in Queens.”

   Natasha quirked a brow, skimming the folder toward her and peering at a certain page. “I’ll be damned. Guess that’s one less monster under the bed to worry about.”

   “Is that all? Can I go now?” She started toward the door, but the suddenly serious look on Natasha’s face stopped her cold.

   “I’m sorry, Rosa, but there’s more.” She closed her eyes briefly, and then squared her shoulders, her voice dropping into the same brisk tone she used to use in mission briefings. “Two months ago, S.H.I.E.L.D. received an anonymously sent dossier with surveillance images of retired KGB agents in Warsaw. We sent an agent out to investigate, and he was made the second the plane touched down. He was attacked and nearly killed in a back alley two days later.” Natasha hesitated, and then flipped the page to reveal a single photograph. “His attacker was a child. A ten-year-old girl with advanced combat skills and covert ops training. And she was speaking Russian.”

   It took a moment for the full weight of what she’d said to hit Rosa; she froze, heat flooding her face as her heart began to pound. _No. No, no, no._ She could feel her head shaking slowly in disbelief as she reached out for the photograph, clutching it so hard it crumpled. The photograph was blurred but unmistakable; a lithe slip of a thing, all elbows and knees with her hair drawn back into a severe bun at the crown of her head. In one hand was a standard-issue combat knife, the kind that had been handed to Rosa at age eight by her very first ballet instructor, and the snarl contorting her face did nothing to disguise how very young and very scared she was.

   Rosa’s stomach seized, unbidden, and her gorge rose up in her throat. She threw the photo down, rushing toward the door, and made it just in time to vomit violently into the trash can.

   “That was more or less how I reacted,” Natasha said, and there was real sympathy in her voice.

   “It’s happening again,” Rosa rasped.

   “Yes.”

   “ _Fuck_.”

   “Yes.”

   She hung her head for a moment, trying quell the nausea and gain some semblance of dignity. “Is the agent okay?”

   “It was Barton, and he’s fine. That wasn’t the first child to stab him and it won’t be the last.” Natasha’s lips twitched. “Coulson, however, was considerably more upset. He’s commissioned me to track down all existing intel on the organization previously known as Red Room, including any surviving or former Black Widow agents.”

   Rosa glared at her as she wiped her mouth. “You came all the way to New York and barged in on my work to ask me things you already know? I don’t believe that for a second.”

   Natasha smiled ruefully, closing the file. “All right. I might have another proposition for you, but first I need to know what you know.”

   “Nothing.” She pushed back her hair with a trembling hand. “I don’t know anything. Like I said, I’ve been keeping my head down. I’m out of the game, I’ve been out for years.”

   “Really? Because typically people out of the game don’t take down the second-in-command in a Soviet spy organization.”

   “Wouldn’t have done it at all if the Sarge hadn’t tracked her down first, you gonna call him a secret agent too?”

   Natasha glanced around. “Remind me, is the Sarge the one currently crouched down outside peeping in the window?”

   Rosa didn’t even bother looking. “No, the Sarge is the one trying to get him to stop.”

   Natasha’s smile warmed a few degrees. “Interesting work environment.”

   “And I’d really like to keep it that way.” Rosa sighed. “Fine. What do you need to know?”

* * *

   Okay, this probably wasn’t the most dignified thing he’d ever done, but it wasn't the least by a long shot.

   “Peralta! What are you doing?”

   “Shh, Sarge!” Jake ducked down, flattening himself against the low wall under the window. He was fairly confident they hadn’t seen him, but better to err on the side of caution. “You’re gonna blow my cover!”

   “No, I’m going to draw attention to the fact that you’re spying on Rosa and her sister like a little kid.” Terry crossed his arms. “Don’t you have case reports you’re supposed to be finishing up right about now?”

   “C’mon, Sarge, you can’t tell me you’re not at least a little curious. That is _Rosa Diaz’s family_ in there. Gina and I had a running bet that she’d been created in a lab when someone spilled hazardous chemicals on an assault rifle.”

   “Everybody came from somewhere, Peralta. There’s no reason Diaz couldn’t have been adopted by a rich white family and then sent to a ballet school where she got expelled for beating up ballerinas . . . yeah, okay, her life is bizarre and I can’t blame you for being curious. But spying isn’t gonna make her open up more!”

   “This is Rosa we’re talking about, she’s never gonna open up more! Hence, spying!”

   “Peralta, do not make me move you –”

   “Excuse me, gentlemen?”

   They both turned around. There was another woman standing in the center of the bullpen, easily as impossibly beautiful as Natalie. She was blonde and willowy, with luminous blue eyes and elfin, catlike features that gave her smile a hint of mischief. She was dressed like a secretary if that secretary were a dominatrix in her free time, with a low-buttoned blouse and a pencil skirt tailored within an inch of its life. She smiled at Jake, just this side of sultry, and he couldn’t help a reflexive swallow.

   “Um – yes, ma’am, how can we help you?” Terry said, obviously recovering himself.

   She held out a hand, to kiss or shake Jake wasn’t sure. “Nice to meet you all, of course. My name is Ellie Rushman, and I’m looking for Detective Rosa Diaz?”

   “Oh, _come on_.”

   Rosa and Natalie were standing in the door of the conference room, both staring at Ellie. Natalie’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, looking somehow amused and annoyed all at once; Rosa was openly glaring, mouth fallen open in shock. “Ah, there you are!” Ellie said brightly, skating past Hitchcock’s desk and leaving him gaping. “And Natalie! It’s been too long.”

   “Hello, Ellie,” Natalie said dryly.

   “Ellie,” Rosa said frostily. If her tone dampened Ellie’s enthusiasm at all, she didn’t show it. “It’s not a great time.”

   “Well, it’s a good enough time for Natalie, I’d assume I’ll fit right in. We really should get better at communicating, dear sister, I could have saved myself the trip.” She adjusted the purse on her arm, her demeanor growing more businesslike. “Now, I assume we’re all here about Mother?”

   “Just get in here,” Rosa said through gritted teeth. Ellie hummed a soft little laugh, stepping between them with her head held high. Rosa slammed the door behind her, and the entire bullpen seemed to let out a breath.

   “Was she adopted by a family of supermodels?!” Jake hissed incredulously.

   Terry was openly staring, not even bothering with courtesy as the three inside drew the blinds. “I don’t know, man. Maybe you’re right, something weird is going on here.”

   “Exactly. And the Nine-Nine’s gonna get to the bottom of this!”

   “Jake, wait –”

   “Hey Chaaaarles . . .”

* * *

    Rosa closed the door behind them, helped the other two close the blinds, and slammed Ellie up against a wall. “Seriously, what the _hell_?”

   The other woman’s breath didn’t even falter. “In your own office, Vasilisa? I always knew you were secretly kinky.”

   “Not today, Yelena,” Natasha said, folding her arms. “You gonna tell us why you’re here or keep teasing?”

   Yelena Belova bared her teeth in a grin. “I suspect the same reason you are, Natalia. You both look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

   Rosa moved to slant an arm across Yelena’s throat. She had to have seen the files; those pale blue eyes hadn’t missed a thing since the day they opened. “What do you know about all this?”

   “Is this really a conversation you want to have here?” Natasha asked lowly, glancing at the closed blinds. She had a point, but Rosa was beyond caring.

   “I just had to move a few months ago, if you think I’m letting you anywhere near my apartment you’re crazier than she is,” she muttered, but released Yelena all the same. Yelena massaged her neck lightly. “Now tell us why you’re here before I have my friends out there arrest you.”

   “Like I said, I figured Natalia had already told you.” Her voice had slipped back into the crisp British RP she’d originally learned English in. “I’m here to offer my services in your Frankensteinian endeavor.”

   “Speak. English,” Rosa growled.

   Instead Natasha spoke.  “We’re going to eliminate the entire Red Room organization, and she wants to help us.”

   “We’re doing _what_?” Rosa attempted to both snap around to stare and keep both eyes on Yelena. “When were you going to tell me that?”

   “I told you I had a proposition.”

   “You said proposition, not suicide pact!”

   “She’s taking this better than I thought,” Yelena said to Natasha. Rosa started forward before Natasha grabbed her.

   “Just hear us out,” she said, low and fervent. Rosa ripped her arm away, but restrained herself from punching anyone.

   “Two minutes. Talk.”

   “I’m sorry, has becoming a police officer made you illiterate?” Yelena asked. “They’ve taken more children, Vasya. Full stop.”

   “That’s . . . weirdly selfless of you,” Rosa said, suspicious.

   “I’m gonna have to agree,” Natasha said. “What’s in this for you?”

   “Careful, darlings, you’re going to hurt my feelings.” Yelena narrowed her eyes, her playful tone hardening. “Take my offer or leave it, but you will need me on this little venture, and I can’t guarantee I’ll be around to offer a second time.”

   “There is no ‘little venture’,” Rosa snapped.

   “Rosa.” Natasha’s tone was placating but firm. “You heard her. You heard me. You said it yourself, it’s happening again.”

   God, it felt like her whole life was looming over her, like falling asleep knowing full well a nightmare was on its way. “Why us?” she asked, weak even to her own ears. “You work for a goddamn spy organization, surely you got enough manpower without one random cop from Brooklyn. Why can’t I just live my life?”

   “If even a single Red Room agent survives, there’s no guarantee of you’ll be able to. Besides, you remember the mansion, it’s like a labyrinth made love to a death trap. We could spend the next six months coaching special ops through the floor plan, storm in and cause an international incident or . . .”

   “Or an old, poorly wired mansion suffers a terrible fire at the hands of three ghosts who know the place like the back of their hands,” Yelena finished, and Rosa hated how much sense it made. Hated how she felt that old itch in her fingers and burn in her throat that meant a part of her was already gearing up to go. “Come on, Vasilisa. You want to keep putting out fires as they come up, or do you want to burn it all to the ground?”

   Rosa swore quietly, glancing at the blinds masking them from the rest of the squad. She thought of Gina, how scared she’d been of a simple B&E. Of Amy’s determination to become the youngest captain in NYPD history. Of Jake surreptitiously fiddling with a ringbox in his pocket. Of Charles’s determination to categorize a thousand unique flavors from all over the world. She thought of how easily that could be taken away from them, all because of her.

   “Fine,” she said, turning to face Natasha. “To you, not to her. I don’t know what games you’re playing, but we don’t need the complication.”

   “Oh? And where are you off to first?” Yelena raised a delicate eyebrow. “You’re working off intel that’s, what, five years old? Six? It’s been a while since either of you have known what Red Room is up to.”

   “Yeah? How long has it been for you?”

   “Off and on?” Yelena smiled, feral. “You two never could get it through your heads that variety is the spice of life. They’re much less likely to kill you if they all think you’re on their side.”

   “Nobody thinks you’re on their side,” Rosa said. “Nobody trusts you worth a damn.”

   “Oh, but you trust her?” Yelena jerked her chin at Natasha, who had been silently watching the entire exchange. “I guarantee that for everything she’s told you there are ten things she hasn’t.”

   “We’re sisters, aren’t we?” Natasha said, her tone wry. “I have nothing to hide.”

   “Really? Then tell me, where is the ineffable Agent Barton? Don’t tell me he couldn’t make it.”

   “Barton is recovering from his mission in Warsaw. Blood loss will do that to a person.”

   “Spare me. I’ve seen that man fall off a third-story roof and go limping off after you to Tanzania the next day –”

   “You _pushed_ him –”

   “And now suddenly I’m supposed to believe a child-sized stab wound has him incapacitated? Hardly.” Yelena tilted her head, contemplating Natasha. Rosa realized it right as Yelena did.

   “Oh.”

   “Yelena,” Rosa warned.

   A delicious smile spread across Yelena’s face. “ _Oh_.”

   “Leave it, Yelena.”

   “He doesn’t know, does he? Director Fury didn’t see fit to tell him?” She looked even closer, an odd light in her eye. “Oh dear. It wasn’t Fury who made that particular call, was it? It was _you_.” Natasha said nothing, merely regarding them impassively, but to two trained spies who had grown up beside her she may as well have been screaming. “What’s the matter, Natalia? Trouble in paradise? Don’t want your beloved Barton peering under that particular rock? You’re absolutely right, you know, he may not like what he sees.”

   Natasha whipped around suddenly, viperlike, and even Yelena recoiled. “What I do or do not tell my partner is none of your concern,” she said, low and fervent. “Barton has his demons, and I have mine, and I do not need him to ride to the rescue any time they come back to haunt me. Now are you in or are you out?”

   “She’s out,” Rosa broke in before Yelena could answer. “There’s no way I’m letting you do this alone, and I don’t trust her not to throw us to the wolves the second we walk out of this precinct.”

   Natasha pursed her lips, looking back and forth between them with the look of someone trying to make a dog and a jackal be friends. “Rosa, sidebar?”

   “Shall I plug my ears and hum for you?” Yelena said dryly. Ignoring her, Rosa dragged Natasha away, momentarily debating playing music from her phone or something in order to muffle their speech.

   “Natalia, you can’t be serious about this,” she hissed. Natasha sighed, her eyes fluttering shut briefly.

   “She’s right, you know. Doing this without her could take years, and that’s time those girls don’t have.”

   “And you believe she’s just gonna tell us all that, no charge?” Rosa shot a glance back at Yelena, who was somehow managing to read the files with her back turned. “C’mon, Natalia. I know that you and she were – close, but just because she had your back once upon a time doesn’t mean she won’t put a knife in it now.”

   Natasha said nothing for a moment, but Rosa could practically feel the air between them cool. “We cannot take the organization down just the two of us, and she has intel we don’t,” Natasha said flatly, and Rosa could feel herself losing ground.

   “But –”

   “Before you make your final decision,” Yelena called over her shoulder, “I may have something else that could interest you.”

   In spite of her better judgment, Rosa turned back to look at her. She had her head tipped back to look at them, on her face the tiny smirk of someone who’s won long before the game is over. “What?”

   That smirk had felled empires. “I know how to kill Papa.”

 _Fuck_.

   Natasha and Rosa barely exchanged glances before Rosa spoke again. “My apartment, 0730. Make sure you don’t get followed.” And then, because she should be getting something out of this, “Bring food.”

   Yelena straightened, gathering her purse and smoothing her skirt. “Very good. And your address?”

   “Don’t be cute.”

   “Fair enough. See you then, sister.” With one last enigmatic glance backward and a whiff of jasmine perfume, Yelena was gone, sauntering back through the precinct and into the elevator.

   Natasha made a soft noise in her throat, turning back to look at Rosa.  “Well. Guess I’ll see you soon.”

   Rosa pinched the bridge of her nose, fruitlessly trying to stifle the dull ache behind her eyes. “Just – just go, Natalia.” Natasha seemed as if she would say something, but thought better of it. Instead she patted her arm, fond but formal, and disappeared after Yelena.

   Rosa was no stranger to long days. By fourteen years old, she’d been trained to stay awake seventy-two hours at a time without breaking. But it had been a long time since she’d had a day as long as this one, and it wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. So she let herself stay in the conference room a moment longer, closing her eyes and taking three deep breaths. In, out; in, out. One last job. One miserable, grisly job and it would actually be over.

   She tipped her head back defiantly and walked out of the conference room.

   “Heeeey.” Jake was hiding behind the door, doing the worst “totes casual” voice she’d ever heard. “So . . . what was that?”

   She sighed and decided to go with the most honest answer she could offer him. “Trouble.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update should be 2/16!  
> Also, to each their own, but this is how I personally picture [Yelena Belova ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Natalie_Dormer_2014.jpg)


	3. Privideniya

   The rest of the day passed in a haze of paperwork, collaring perps and scanning nearby windows and alleys to make sure she wasn’t being tailed.  If the rest of the squad noticed that she was off her game, nobody said anything.  By the time five o’clock rolled around, there was a heavy ball of dread lurking in the pit of her stomach, and she forced herself not to make eye contact with the rest of the precinct as she knocked on Holt’s door.

   “Captain?”

   Holt put his papers down immediately, looking up with the slight furrowed brow that meant concern.  “Yes, Diaz, how can I help you?”

   “I need some . . . personal time.” She felt like an sniveling little kid even saying the words, but Holt didn’t seem to hold it against her.

   “Yes, of course.  Is everything all right?”

   “Yeah. Mom fell in the shower and broke her hip, we’re gonna help her get through PT.”  She’d been rehearsing all day, but something in her chest still shriveled at the blatant lie.  She must have been out of practice.

   “I’m glad she has you all.  How long will you be out?”

   “Two weeks?”  Two weeks and it would all be over.  She’d either be back at her desk or dead in a gutter, and one way or another she wouldn’t have to worry about this crap anymore.

   “Take all the time you need.  I have to say, I’m glad to see your sisters offer support in a time like this.  Is your mother expected to make a full recovery?”

   She didn’t say anything for a moment, not trusting her voice.  “Yeah. Yeah, we’re all gonna be fine.”  She’d promised herself no goodbyes, but couldn’t resist offering a hand.  “Captain, I just . . . wanted to say thank you. For everything.”

   Holt seemed surprised, but took the extended hand and shook it.  “I couldn’t ask for a better detective.  Are you sure you’re all right?”

   “M’fine.” _Liar_.  “Take care, Captain.”

   “And you, Diaz.”  He returned to his paperwork, and Rosa knew she was being dismissed.  Lump in her throat, she turned on heel and marched directly to the elevator, no stopping, no turning back.  She had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that to say goodbye was to somehow acknowledge that she was never coming back.  It wasn’t goodbye. It was see you later.

   Goddammit.

   She ditched her phone on the way home, after sending a single text to Adrian: _10-19_ .  She waited only long enough to see the _Read_ receipt before tossing it onto the subway tracks and pulling her hood over her head.  Perfect.  By this time tomorrow he would be on a plane to Argentina, and one less civilian would be wandering around with a target on their back.

   She got home at 6:00 sharp, flipping the three locks and closing the blinds in one swift motion.  She’d let herself get complacent, whittling her cut-and-run drills down to two a month, but apparently some things were like riding a bike; within the hour her go bag was on the counter, her clothes were in garbage bags by the door, her plates and silverware were scrubbed clean of DNA and every flat surface had been wiped of prints.  She even pulled out an old pinboard she’d used for late-night casework and put it next to the kitchen counter.  She’d debated briefly destroying the place and making it look like an abduction, but some small part of her was still holding on hope that she would make it back after all, and crashing on a park bench or Charles’s couch till she found a new place didn’t sound too appealing.

   Flicking her penknife from her pocket, she pried up one of the floorboards and pulled out a well-worn backpack, forcing down the lump in her throat at the sight of it.  Every Widow had one, kept it in their bolthole at all times; if there was one thing they’d been taught, it was how to disappear.  The passports, visas and driver’s licenses inside held a variety of names: Emily Goldfinch, Andrea Sandoval, Nikoletta Roldán.  Each cover had a different look and backstory, each a manner of speaking she would have to refamiliarize herself with.  It had been years since she’d been on the run; some of the dates on the visas had passed and would need to be fudged, but fortunately the euros, rubles and korunas stuffed in the bottom would never expire.  It was enough to keep her going in any country in Europe or North America for two weeks.  Never let it be said Red Room never did anything for her.

   There was something else inside, something far more valuable than a few slips of paper.  Her fingers grazed it and she almost froze, her brain slammed with memories so powerful she could almost see them.  For a moment she steeled herself, and with a feeling somewhere between horror and reverence, she drew it slowly from the bag and splayed it across her knees.  The fabric was heavy between her fingers, almost surprisingly so.  She still had no idea what it was made of, something like leather and kevlar and neoprene; bulletproof and non-conductive with enough stretch to fit like a glove.  She still remembered the first time she’d put it on, the whisper of power as it slid over her skin, the feeling of reckless invincibility that came with it.  There had been a time where she’d felt she could survive anything as long as she had this on her back.

   Rosa shook out her old Black Widow uniform, pulled the boots from her backpack, and slid the Bites onto her wrists.

   They were the only piece of equipment she’d really forced herself to maintain, and her efforts had paid off; she could feel the thrum of electricity even through the leather lining, and she couldn’t help but feel comforted by the familiar weight.  They really worked better with the glove conductors, but in a pinch they could still knock any attacker flat on their ass.  She’d walked into hostage situations armed with nothing but steel-toed boots and the Bites on her wrists and walked out victorious.  She knew it was messed up, but for the first time since she’d seen Natasha at her desk, she felt like things might actually be all right.

   There was a soft knock at the door; two, two, then one, in the rhythm of a children’s lullaby.  Priming her Bites, she darted to her laptop, checking the door cam.  Yelena waved up cheerfully, hefting a plastic bag of Chinese takeout boxes and a brown-bagged bottle like a peace offering.  Heaving a deep sigh, Rosa gathered herself, shoved her gun in her holster, and went to open the door.

   “I come bearing gifts,” Yelena announced.  “Fried rice, lo mein, sweet and sour chicken and the finest whiskey Canada has to offer.”

   Rosa lifted an eyebrow.  “You’re kidding.”

   “Obviously.” She lifted the bottle: Stoli.

   “Thank God. Come on in.”  She stepped back, allowing Yelena to sweep past her into the apartment.  She couldn’t miss the critical gaze Yelena dealt out while setting the food on the counter, which probably had as much to do with sizing up potential exits and hazards as much as critiquing the apartment’s color scheme.  Old habits die hard, she supposed, and it wasn’t as though she could blame her; after all, her own hand kept brushing up against her holster in case Yelena decided to just shoot her and take off into the night.  “Everything to your satisfaction?” she said wryly, taking the food and diving straight for the fried rice.

   “I suppose.  Could do with a pop of color in the kitchen.”

   “Used to have a bowl of lemons, but it got shot.”

   “Pity.  Will Natalia be joining us?”

   “Should be.”  Yelena leaned up against the counter, cool and catlike, and Rosa couldn’t help the trickle of unease down her spine as she looked at her.  Her apartment wasn’t exactly personal, but it was the closest thing she had to a safe space outside of the precinct, and having such a large and deadly chunk of her past wandering around as if she owned the place set her teeth on edge.  “So,” she said, aiming for casual and hitting flat, “what have you been up to?”

   Yelena dealt her the kind of look given to a toddler trying to sneak a cookie.  “Nothing in New York, unfortunately, so you can put the handcuffs away.”  Rosa shrugged; worth a shot.  “I know exactly what you’ve been up to, of course.  The NYPD has its faults, of course, but its bureaucracy is not one of them.  I must say, you’ve kept a remarkably high profile for a girl currently resting in the Unmarked Graves.  I suppose keeping these fine streets clear of pickpockets and public urinators has been worth it?”

   Rosa was saved from answering by the same familiar knock at the door.   _One-two three-four five_.  She’d never thought Natasha’s arrival would deescalate a situation, but apparently it was just that kind of day.  With a quick glance at both Yelena’s reaction and her laptop’s door cam, Rosa crossed to the door and fairly threw it open, exposing Natasha standing in the hall with a bottle of Stoli.

   “I come bearing gifts,” she said.

   “Way ahead of you,” Rosa said, stepping aside to allow her inside.  Performing the same customary sweep of the eyes, Natasha stepped inside, shucking her coat and setting an impressive-looking briefcase on the countertop.  She met Yelena’s eyes briefly, and the look passed between them was so loaded and incomprehensible that Rosa decided she’d rather not know.

   “So,” she said, a little too loudly, turning to grab some glasses for the Stoli, “we gonna catch up like a damn high school reunion, or we getting down to business?”

   Yelena pouted, playful.  “Do I at least get to finish my lo mein first?”

   “No.”  She slid two vodka rocks down the counter and swallowed half of hers in one go.  “Talk.”

   Another loaded look.  Oh, this was gonna be fun.  “All right then,” Natasha said, popping open the briefcase and pulling out yet another dossier.  “Yelena was right, most of our intel is stale.  Until Warsaw, the last we’d heard was that Taisya had been killed in Crimea almost two years ago.” A dull pang resounded in Rosa’s chest.  She pushed it down with Stoli.  “As that was the last time many of the officials were seen in public, we assumed that was the beginning of the housekeeping operation.”

   Yelena hummed, pulling the dossier toward herself and flipping to a picture of a building in ruins.  “Believe it or not, Red Room had attributed that particular fatality to you all these years.  A mystery for another day, I suppose.”  She scanned the rest of the paper, turned the page, and snorted.  “Useless, all of it.  If I might start at the beginning, then?”

   Natasha nodded, and Rosa suppressed a roll of her eyes and gestured for her to go on.  As much as it stung her pride to be treated like a schoolchild, they’d get nowhere without her.

   “Very well.  Two months ago, I was approached on the streets of Paris by Madame Bolkonsky herself.  She told me she had a proposition for me, and invited me to a private dinner with herself and Comandat Igumnov that night.  I assumed it was a front, and they were finally going to have me eliminated.”  She smiled up at them, eyes bright.  “So of course I accepted.  You can imagine my surprise when the meal turned out entirely genuine.”

   Natasha quirked an eyebrow; Rosa couldn’t help a disbelieving snort.

   “Quite.  Madame informed me that they had been working on another program, dedicated to demonstrating the glory of Soviet supremacy before the entire world.  A fresh set of agents, stronger, faster, and more loyal than any who came before them.  And she was offering me a senior place in its ranks.”

   “An offer you refused,” Rosa said, although she knew better.

   “Keep your enemies closer, dear sister.  I told her my curiosity was piqued, at least, and she offered me a demonstration in exchange for a single favor.  It was a terrible deal, so of course I took it.”

   “You’ve gone soft, Yelena,” Natasha said.

   “Boredom truly is a terrible affliction, and Red Room has always offered a level of . . . security.  So I went home.” Her shoulders hitched slightly, a rare flash of discomfort on her face.  “It was . . . impressive, I’ll give them that.”

   “How many?” Natasha asked quietly.

   “No more than a dozen.  All the same age, roughly the same height and build.  They’ve no names, only numbers; the powers that be seem to believe we had too much freedom last time, too much individual spirit.” She looks both of them in the eye. “And they’re good. They’re very, very good. By nineteen they’ll be unstoppable.”

   “What kind of training?”

   “So far I’ve only participated in pointe work and acrobatics.  As they’re not entirely stupid, I believe they’re keeping me far away from the weapons until they decide where my loyalties lie.  I have been able to observe, though, and program remains as vigorous as ever.”

   “So you know who all is involved?”

   “To some extent, yes, although anyone who’d like to check my work can be my guest.” She reached into the file, searching through the stack of profiles and pulling out a few at random.  “Dead – dead – died of a heart attack while shagging some prostitute, if you can believe that –”

   “We believe it,” Natasha and Rosa chorused.  After what she’d seen, Rosa couldn’t imagine any other ending for Sergeant Kashnikov.

   “Here we are.”  She took the remaining profiles and began pinning them one by one to the corkboard, revealing face after familiar face that Rosa thought she’d left behind for good.  She took another slug of Stoli, trying to quell the nausea in her gut.

   “To my best estimate, there are forty-two occupants of the Manor at the moment, although they cycle in and out nearly daily.  Twelve girls, two ballet instructors, three combat instructors, two spymasters, and –” She pinned one picture at the top of the board, front and center over all the rest “– Papa.”

   She said his name with the trace of a Russian accent, the only way Rosa could imagine it being said.  The atmosphere of the room seemed to change the moment they all saw his face.  It was a fine enough face, stately, almost elegant, pushing seventy now but still handsome its way. Even from the page, those dark eyes seemed to follow Rosa the way they had her entire childhood.  The name _Vadim Semyonovich Rodchenko_ was printed beside him in dark, bold letters, but she couldn’t think of him as anything but Papa; it was the name she’d heard a thousand times throughout her training, spoken a thousand different ways but each carrying that whisper of fear she could still feel at the base of her spine.

_Careful, Vasya, Papa is watching._

_You don’t want to disappoint Papa, do you?_

_Smile for Papa, now._

   There was a time she would have done anything for his approval.  A time where everything she’d ever done had been so that he would smile, look down at her bloodstained hands and say _well done, little swan_.

   “Is he still involved?” she asked, taking a step closer in spite of herself. Yelena nodded grimly, surveying him like a grenade with the pin out.

   “His fingerprints are all over the operation.  The ballet, the rigid decorum, even the less practical aspects of the weaponry and combat styles.  Thought I even caught a hint of that cologne he used to wear last week.”

   “So wait, you haven’t actually seen him?” Rosa asked sharply.  “We can’t afford to guess on any of this, Yelena, if you think we’re trekking halfway across the world on a hunch –”

   “He’s involved,” Natasha broke in.  She hadn’t looked away from the picture from the moment that Yelena had pinned it up; her hand was skimming up and down the fine-chained necklace at her throat, a tic Rosa hadn’t seen since they were both little girls.  “We were his little swans, remember? He dedicated twenty years of his life to training us, he’s not just going to let us go now.  Besides, he’s staked his career on the Widow program; if the results aren’t replicable, it’s finished.”

   It made a certain amount of sense, although it was the last thing Rosa wanted to hear.  The truth was she’d known in her bones that Papa and Red Room were inextricably linked; as long as he was alive, there was a chance her past would rise up like a zombie.  She’d been skimming global news sites for years, hoping against hope for the obituary of a distinguished Russian general at the hands of a training accident or a mission gone wrong or the common cold or the Winter fucking Soldier.  Anything that meant she’d never have to hear those sticky-sweet endearments again.  

   “If he’s not even in the manor, how are we supposed to kill him?” she gritted out.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Yelena said, exasperated.  “He may not always be there, but I know when he will be.  They’re holding a Recital.”

   The blood froze in Rosa’s veins.  Natasha made a sound like she’d been punched.  For a moment the spotlight flooded her eyes again, and she was a little girl, helpless and pained and scared out of her damn mind in a costume that itched around the waist and didn’t quite hide the bruises and she was so, so sure she was going to fail that she could swear her heart stopped.  Her throat closed over, and she had to close her eyes and force a breath before she choked or screamed or both.

   “When?” Natasha asked quietly.

   “Next Thursday.”

   “You’re sure?”

   “Everything’s there, Natalia.  The costumes, the choreography, the specialized training sessions, the . . . targets.”

   “God,” Rosa hissed, propping up against the counter to dig her hands into her hair.  The pain sharpened her senses, clearing her head enough for her to take a deep, cleansing breath.   _Keep it together, Diaz, at least until the two assassins are out of your apartment._  

   “If it’s like last time, everyone will be there,” Natasha said, her voice flat and distant as if speaking mostly to herself.  “Everyone who’s anyone, all there to see the show.”

   “Okay.  All right.” She pulled in another deep breath, forcing her voice to level off.  “So for one night only all our eggs will be in one basket, and they need to die or this cycle just starts all over again.  Fight you both for the privilege.”

   “As much as we’d all enjoy watching them suffer, subtlety is key here,” Natasha said.  Yelena rolled her eyes; Natasha shot her a reproving look.  “I mean it, Yelena.  The KGB is bound to investigate, and the last thing we need is a stray bullet causing World War III.  This has to look like an accident – they can suspect all they want, but if they have proof we’re all dead.”

   Yelena sighed, with resignation or impatience Rosa wasn’t sure.  “There was a time those pretty little hands weren’t afraid of a bit of dirt.  I suppose bolting the mansion from the outside and burning it to the ground is too inelegant a solution?”

   “Hey!” Rosa slammed a hand down on the counter, glaring viciously at both of them.  “Anything happens to those little girls and I do the same to you, you understand?”

   “Temper, temper.” Yelena held her hands up, eyes wide and innocent.  “I assumed our dear sister had an extraction plan, considering she apparently has the might of the entire American government behind her.”

   Natasha’s face twitched, but she forged ahead regardless.  “The hardest part will be convincing the girls that it’s safe to leave; we’ll probably have to wait until we clean house to try moving them.  But once we’re out, we’ll need a decent amount of cover to get them to S.H.I.E.L.D. before they raise the alarms.  Our best bet is probably the ballet company ruse.  Just throw some pointe shoes in with your gym clothes, TSA won’t look too hard.”

   Rosa looked down at her stir fry, stabbing at it with her chopsticks.  “I don’t have any pointe shoes,” she mumbled.

   The other two looked up.  “I’m sorry?” Natasha asked.

   “I don’t have any pointe shoes,” Rosa repeated, a bit defiantly.  “I haven’t danced in years.”

   Yelena seemed genuinely surprised.  “How do you keep your core strength up?”

   She hesitated, but it wasn't as though those two wouldn’t eventually figure it out.  “Yoga.”

   They both stared.  “My god,” Yelena said, “you really have gone native, haven’t you?”

   “You’ll borrow mine, then,” Natasha decided, cutting off Rosa’s retort.  “Tell me you at least kept your suitcase.”

   “Of course.”  The lead-lined compartment had proven worth its weight in gold; espionage aside, it was nearly transcendent to be able to travel with a full-size bottle of shampoo again.  “So clean house, nab some passports, bolt the doors and set the fire.  Shouldn’t be too hard.”

   “Let’s not be hasty,” Yelena said, chewing on a bite of lo mein contemplatively.  “A quick stopover in the server room couldn’t hurt.  Red Room has finally entered the digital age, and everything paper has been meticulously archived spanning back decades.  You know, even a fraction of that information could go for –”

   “No,” Rosa broke in.  “We burn it all, no selling.”

   “I agree.  Looks a bit less like an unfortunate accident if Red Room intel starts popping up on the market immediately afterwards,” Natasha said.  Yelena opened her mouth, but then merely shrugged, looking back at Papa with her teeth digging hard into her lip.

   “So that takes care of the brass and Papa, but not the grunts or trainers,” Rosa said, looking at the handful of faces on the board.  “We got some kind of head count, attendance sheet, any way to verify they’re all there?”

   “Afraid it’s not that simple,” Yelena began, but a sharp beep from Rosa’s laptop cut her off.  Rosa flicked open the webcam icon to reveal four men climbing the main stairwell, dressed in combat boots and heavy jackets with almost-hidden bulges in the back.  Her stomach dropped sharply.  She’d always known this was a possibility, but actually seeing it happen cut deeper than expected.

   “You know them?” Natasha asked, setting aside her chicken and coming up to stand behind her.

   “Nope.”

   “Don’t suppose you were expecting a delivery, darling?” Yelena said, reaching into her purse.

   “You’re welcome to go ask them,” Rosa said irritably, checking the lock on the front door and drawing the blackout curtains.  “Let me know when you decide you’d like to be helpful.”

   “The both of you really do need to lighten up, you know,” Yelena said, drawing a Tokarev pistol from her bag and making for the door.

   “No!” Rosa hissed, jerking her arm down.  “This isn’t the slums of St. Petersburg, if my neighbors hear gunshots they’re going to call the cops!”

   “Are you going to let me shoot anyone on this particular venture?” she asked irritably, although she stowed the weapon in her waistband nonetheless.  Natasha rolled her eyes, looking about five seconds from putting them both in time out.

   “Ulanova formation?” she asked, tugging at her cuffs as she examined the figures in the camera.

   “Not enough space.  Karsavina, I’ll take point, Natasha flank and Yelena up the rear,” Rosa said, snagging her backpack and dragging her chair to the middle of the room.  “We have thirty seconds, move, move!”

   They sprang into action, slipping with ease back into formation.  Rosa spun the chair to face the door, heart in her mouth as she yanked a knife from her bag.  She slashed at her belt loop to test it as Natasha crouched at the wall; sharp as the day she got it.  Natasha had already slipped a length of wire from her coat sleeve, making eye contact and gesturing with two fingers.   _First two hostiles to you, next pair to me._ Dividing up prey like a pack of wolves, just the way they had in Siberia.  She could taste blood from biting her lips and her stomach felt trembly but her hands were perfectly steady.

   God, she’d missed this.

   The locks on the door clattered, and she hardly dared breathe; Yelena had opened the most difficult but left just enough to suggest the attackers had the element of surprise.  First click, second, and then the deadbolt slid back with a _clack_ , and the door swung open.

   They entered silently, handguns out and pointed at the ground; no silencers, so most likely a last resort.  They’d pulled ski masks over their heads, but their stance said special ops, and the sheer bulk on all of them said professionals.  Professional or no, the point man stopped dead when he saw Rosa sitting dead center of her apartment with her legs crossed daintily and using her knife to clean her nails.

   “Hi,” she said brightly, and hurled the knife into his chest.

   It would have barely stuck through his padding if she hadn’t followed it up with a vicious kick, driving it deep between his ribs.  He went down as the other shouted, swinging the gun around at her head, but she was already moving.  She grabbed his wrist, wedged her shoulder under his arm and gave a whole-body wrench that sent him sailing over her shoulder.  His foot caught her coffee table and both he and the glass hit the ground with an almighty _crash_ , the gun skittering away.  The one behind her snapped up his gun but had barely made it when Natasha’s garotte snagged around his neck and he twisted back horribly.  Rosa dived past him, picking up the gun and rolling back to her feet as the second goon managed to haul himself to his knees.

   “Tell Bolkonsky we said hi,” she snarled, and pistol-whipped him so hard he slammed into the wall on his way to the ground.

   She turned back around just in time to see Natasha flipping neatly to the ground with a thug’s broken neck between her legs, tossing her hair out of her eyes as he crumpled.  “You know, not every random thug off the street needs a demonstration of your gymnastic skills.”

   “You’re the one who didn’t want a mess,” Natasha said dryly, but the racking of a slide cut off Rosa’s retort.

   “Don’t move,” the fifth assailant said, his gun snapping frantically between Rosa and Natasha.  “Get on the ground, both of you.”

 _Shit_.  Rosa locked eyes with Natasha, raising her hands slowly and sinking into a crouch.  Surrender was an art like anything else; stay coiled, stay ready, wait for your window.  Natasha was curled like a cobra beside her, eyes giving nothing away.

   “Good,” the thug said, stepping closer.  “Now –”

   Yelena stepped out from behind the door, pressed her fist into his neck and delivered 30,000 volts directly into his skull.  He was dead before he hit the ground.

   “Well,” Natasha said, looking around at the five dead bodies strewn through Rosa’s living room, “that could have been worse.”

   “You’re welcome, of course,” Yelena sniffed, crouching down to root through her victim’s pockets.  “Let’s see, cash, a few fake driver’s licenses of varying quality, spare magazines, cable ties – professionals, but not Red Room.  A lazy attempt at best, I must say.”

   “Lazy or distracted,” Rosa pointed out, her blood still pumping just a bit too hard.  “From what you’ve said they have bigger things on their mind at the moment.  Were either of you followed?”

   A shake of the head and a slightly offended look from both of them.  She’d suspected as much, but had to check.  “They had my address, then,” she said, kicking at one of the bodies with something like petulance.  “Guess I’m moving again.”

   Natasha shrugged, dealing her a look that was somehow sympathetic and challenging all in one.  “Not if everyone who knows the address is dead.”

   It was harsh, merciless, and somehow exactly what she needed to hear.  A bit of that old recklessness bubbled up in her stomach, and she couldn’t resist a smirk in reply.  If it had been a member of the Nine-Nine, she probably would have offered a punch on the arm as well, but that was like as not to end in a broken wrist out of sheer reflex.  “All right, you both helped me make the mess, you’re sure as hell helping me clean it up.  Pit stop at the Hudson, then catch a redeye to Moscow?”

   “A few more pieces need to fall into place before our portrait of Red Room is complete, I’m afraid,” Yelena said, pocketing the cash and pulling out a lighter for the licenses.  “On the bright side, flights to Prague should be relatively empty this time of year, no reason we can’t catch the first flight out.”

   Rosa snapped around incredulously.  “Prague?”

   Yelena’s lips curled into a grin.  “You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?”

   Rosa sighed, already mentally calculating how many sheets and blankets it would take to convincingly hide the bodies in Adrian’s car.  “Fine.  Just make it quick.”

   “Itching to get going?”

   “Actually,” she said, pulling out some hoodies from her closet and sliding the police badge from her belt, “Before we leave, there’s something I’ve gotta do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience, y'all! Next update: 3/15.


	4. Svideteli

   “Oh my god, Charles,” Gina yelled, actually lifting her head from her phone to glare, “what have I told you about bringing in week-old rotting garbage for breakfast?”

   “It’s not garbage,” Charles said eagerly, her tone washing obliviously over him.  “The new bagel shop around the corner offers an array of toppings from all over the world, including my personal favorite –” He hefted a circular slab of bread that could loosely be defined as a bagel, were it not leaking something that smelled like the F train on a Saturday night “– Japanese _natto_ , a type of fermented soybean, and a durian-cream-cheese spread that –”

   “See, you’re telling me one thing, but my nose is definitely telling me another, and seeing as it has never let me down in the past I’m gonna need you to burn that ASAP.”

   “Charles, I gotta give this one to Gina,” Amy said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.  “Besides, if Rosa smells that anywhere near her desk she gonna toss it out the window and maybe send you after it.”

   “Detective Diaz will not be with us today, she has requested a measure of family leave in order to assist her mother and sisters,” Captain Holt said, coming to stand by Charles’s desk with his customary mug of tea.

   “Ha! See?”

   “Please do not mistake my clarifying information as an endorsement of your breakfast, Boyle, I find the smell reminiscent of elephant dung wrapped in used gym socks.”

   Jake looked up from his computer as Charles pouted.  “Wait, Rosa called in sick? That makes no sense, I’ve never seen her call in sick once.  Including that time she hallucinated from pneumonia.”

   “She had family trouble, Jake,” Terry said.  “Happens to everyone.”

   “Except Rosa doesn’t have family,” Jake pointed out, narrowing his eyes in the direction of her empty chair.  “According to her they hadn’t spoken in over a decade and then suddenly two girls who look nothing like her show up in the middle of the day asking for help and poof, she’s gone?”

   “Peralta, what are you trying to say?” Holt asked.

   “I don’t know, but something wasn’t right about that whole situation.  You guys saw it, right? I mean, Rosa honestly looked kind of scared. I’ve never seen her like that before.”  He stretched, rocking himself into a stand and glancing around dramatically. “Which I believe means that in service of our friend, I am legally obligated to snoop around in her desk.”

   “Whatever’s not locked is probably booby-trapped,” Amy pointed out, trying and failing to not look intrigued.  “You’re gonna get yourself killed and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

   “Okay, Rosa might go a little overboard, but this is no hidden temple at the beginning of _Raiders_ , okay?  I think I can – wait, what’s that?”

   There was a blinking red light coming from Rosa’s computer, a jump drive sticking out with a piece of tape attached to the  keyring. Jake yanked it out unceremoniously, ignoring Amy’s wince at the obvious lack of proper ejection protocols, and held it up for inspection.  “‘Open when time is right’. Well, I think 9:24 is as good a time as any. Gina, catch!”

   Gina made a noise of interest as the drive soared through the air toward her, stretching out to catch it and holding the note up to the light as though hoping to reveal a hidden message.  “Peralta, I’m not sure I approve of this,” Holt said, even sounding fractionally more stern than usual. “Detective Diaz has been absent for less than twelve hours and already you have disrespected her wishes and disregarded her privacy.  The morning after she has requested a reasonable leave of absence is probably not what she meant by ‘the right time’.”

   “Look, Captain, literally the only time someone leaves a note like that is when they want you to open it after something terrible has happened.” For once, Jake was entirely serious.  “I know what I saw, and something’s going on here, something I have a bad feeling about. Are we seriously going to wait around trying to figure out the mystical, magical ‘right time’ or are we gonna see if our friend needs our help?”

   It was hard logic to argue, and everyone present knew it; slowly but surely they gathered around Gina’s computer, jostling slightly for the best possible view.  There was only one file on the jump drive, a video labeled “FOR THE 99”. Gina clicked on it wordlessly, and up popped a feed of a single chair in front of a blank wall.  The camera jittered, adjusting its focus, and then steadied as Rosa slid in front of the camera. She stared it down, her face inscrutable as always, and then she did something Jake had never seen before: she took a deep, shuddering breath, and closed her eyes.  The moment of weakness passed as quickly as it had come; she threw her head back, shaking her hair out of her face, and then snapped her eyes directly into the camera and began speaking.

   “My name is Alejandra Acosta, alias Vasilisa Ivanovna Petrova, alias Rosa Diaz.  If you’re watching this, I’ve gone on the run and left this to say I’m sorry. And I am. Sorry.  You guys are like my family, and I didn’t want to do this, but you have to believe there was no other way.  Still, I thought you deserved an explanation, so I made this tape to tell you my story. My real story. So here goes, and I should probably say again . . . I’m sorry.

   “I was born Alejandra Acosta in Nicaragua during the height of the Cold War.  My country was one of the only countries in Latin America still in contact with the USSR, and they wanted to strengthen ties by any means possible. When I was six years old, they issued a reward to anyone who volunteered to send their daughters to the Motherland to participate in a risky new operation code named ‘Red Room’.  I had four siblings and my parents were dirt-poor, so keeping me around wasn’t really an option. I was put through a series of tests, and apparently I did pretty well, because the next thing I knew I was being shipped across the world with nothing but the clothes on my back. I never saw or heard from my family again.

   “I spent my childhood and teenage years in the Red Room program alongside thirty-one other girls . . . agents.  My name was changed to Vasilisa Petrova, and I was forbidden to tell anyone I wasn’t from the USSR, but since I could only speak Spanish and everyone else spoke Russian, they figured it out pretty quick.  For the first three months, I spoke to no one and no one spoke to me. From the beginning I was ordered to speak only in Russian, and if I couldn’t remember how to ask for something – food, water, anything – I had to go without.  It was hell, but you couldn’t argue with the results; within three months I was nearly fluent, and keeping pace with the others in all our classes. The official story was that we were a premier ballet academy, and we did spend half the time practicing and performing as the Bolshoi company. It strengthened our core, taught us coordination, and provided the perfect cover for a bunch of pretty young girls.

   The rest of our time was spent learning everything required to become the deadliest league of assassins the Motherland had ever seen.  Once I’d mastered Russian and the other girls had learned Spanish, we were taught English, French, German and Chinese. On top of that we learned martial arts, seduction, espionage, camouflage, firearm proficiency and anything else they thought we’d need. Picture a James Bond training montage if James Bond was a scared kid being held against his will. We learned or we were beaten, and each trial got more dangerous than the last.  Four girls died before we even finished training. The rest of us graduated at nineteen and were given the rank of Black Widow agent.” She smiled then, tiny but genuine. “Yeah, Black Widow. Like the Avenger. Did you really think she was the only one?”

   “I don’t believe this,” Gina breathed.  No one else spoke. Jake wasn’t sure they could.

   “We were taught to view the other girls as our sisters, or a messed-up version of sisters where we might be asked to kill each other at any moment.  Most of them ignored me; since I wasn’t a ‘true Soviet’ they figured I wouldn’t last three days in the field. There were a few exceptions, though, and we were as close as it was possible to get under those circumstances.  One of the girls smuggled food to me every night until I learned enough Russian to eat with the others. She was from Kiev, so I think she identified with the whole outsider thing. Her name . . . Her name was Katya Vernadskaya.”  The name seemed rusty on her tongue. “We were something like friends, for a while. The handlers would have pitted us against each other if they’d noticed, so we still had to beat each other bloody in the training ring, but we were always there to stitch each other up afterwards.”

   She blinked, trailing off into silence for a moment before continuing bluntly.  “Her first mission was to assassinate a British diplomat while he was in DC, try to pin it on the Americans and break the alliance.  His children were present and she couldn’t make herself do it. I never found out whether she was caught and killed by the Americans or if Red Room terminated her for failing, but she died before our twenty-first birthday.  She’s buried in the Unmarked Graves with the nineteen other Widows who died in the line of duty.” A shadow fell across her face, and her gaze shifted away. “I took it hard, and my handlers knew exactly how to use that. I did a lot in those years I’d rather forget, and I’ve done my best to atone for it, but I know that doesn’t help the people I hurt.”  She looked directly into the camera then, her voice low and fervent. “I don’t expect you guys to forgive me. _I_ don’t forgive me.  But you have to know how sorry I am.  For just . . . anything and everything I’ve ever done.”

   She took another shaky breath and visibly forced herself to move on.  “Two years later, I was tasked with infiltrating the NYPD and reporting back American law enforcement strategies to the KGB.  It was simple recon, and the Academy was gonna be child’s play compared to Red Room. I went into it expecting to be bored out of my mind for a year or so until they finally yanked me out.  I didn’t expect to meet Jake.” She snorted, a familiar smirk appearing on her face. “Okay, actually I did expect to meet some loud-mouthed American who thought he was the best thing since sliced bread.  I didn’t expect to _like_ Jake.  And I definitely didn’t expect him to become my first actual friend.”

   Oh yeah, right in the gut.  Jake rubbed at his eyes, mostly to hide that they were definitely not wet at all.

   “I started to question all of it.  Soviet supremacy, my preconceptions of Americans, even my place with Red Room.  By my fourth month with the Nine-Nine, I knew this was wrong and I had to get out.  Only problem was how. They’d told us all our lives that no one lasted longer than a week after defecting, but by then Romanoff had proven that wrong.  Oh yeah,” she added, as if she could somehow hear Amy’s strangled squeal through the screen, “I know Natasha Romanoff. Or as we knew her, Natalia Romanova.”  She actually grinned then. “Or as you guys know her, Natalie Rushman.”

   “Holy SHIT!” Jake exploded.

   “NO!” Terry said, just as loudly.

   Amy seemed beyond words, grasping at Jake’s wrist and gaping like a fish.  Charles let out a sound like a poodle being punched and grabbed at his other one.

   “Bitch, I knew she was too hot to be human!” Gina said, fingers flying over her phone in an attempt to open Twitter at the speed of sound.  Terry mercifully managed to snatch it away before she brought the wrath of the NSA down on all of them.

   “Language, Peralta,” Holt said, although it seemed mostly automatic; he looked as shaken as Jake had ever seen him, pressing a hand over his mouth and shaking his head softly as though trying to wake from a dream.

   “Wait, who’s that?” Hitchcock asked.

   “Her defection to S.H.I.E.L.D. gave me the guts to make a plan,” Rosa went on, obviously deciding they’d had long enough to react.  “I started lying to my handlers, giving them outdated information or omitting just enough detail that I could claim ignorance when their plans didn’t work.  I’ll be honest, I have no idea how long that would have worked, and I had no plan for when they figured it out.” Her knuckles whitened on the table in front of her.  “And then came the Battle of New York.

   “I know that was the hardest day in a lot of people’s lives, and obviously I get why, but in the end it kind of saved mine.  There was a solid three-day window where information was constantly in flux and nobody knew who was alive or dead, and I knew I had to act.  I texted Amy that I was stuck in a building far enough out of our jurisdiction that I knew you couldn’t do anything to verify and spent the next few days erasing myself from existence.  I abandoned my apartment, set up two new covers that Red Room couldn’t trace, filed a death certificate and paid off a reporter to print an announcement in the paper. By the time I came back to the precinct, Alejandra Acosta and Vasilisa Petrova were dead.”  Her lips twitched, almost shy. “But for the first time in her life, Rosa Diaz was free. And until Natasha walked into our precinct last Monday, that was mostly the end of it.”

   A hint of shame crossed her face then, and she looked away.  “There have been a couple of near-misses. Amy, I didn’t really trip during that chase with the cat burglar, I was pushing us both out of the way of sniper fire.  Jake, I have found you flirting with a KGB agent on six different occasions.”

   “Well, that’s not good,” Jake muttered.

   “Terry, to this day I have no idea how you tracked my ballet instructor down, but she was actually my handler and part of the old guard.  That little reunion ended in the shootout on 25th street the Nine-Four is still trying to solve.”

   “My god,” Terry hissed, covering his mouth.  “Terry had brunch with an assassin!”

   “As much as I’d like to congratulate you in helping take down a Russian special operative, it was stupid and risky of me to stay here as long as I did.  I put you all in danger, and I’m sorry.” She squared her shoulders, meeting the camera unflinchingly. “But I’m gonna make this right. I’m gonna find what’s left of Red Room and burn it the fuck to the ground, and if I make it back . . . well, if you guys still want anything to do with me, I’ll be there.  And I’ll always have your backs, no matter where I end up, so no freaking out that some Russian goons are gonna come break down your front door. Until then . . . I love you all.” Her gaze shifted beyond the camera, and she slid her gun from the table and tucked it in the waistband of her jeans. “One way or another, this ends now.”

   There was a long silence as the screen turned black, reflecting back the varying levels of shock on their faces.  Jake wasn’t sure how long they all sat there, trying to process what they’d just seen Every once and awhile, someone would open their mouth as if to speak, only to change their mind with a soft shake of the head.  Finally, Captain Holt stood, straightening his tie and jacket as if to buy himself a little more time. He cleared his throat, closed his eyes briefly, squared his shoulders. Took a breath, let it out, took another.  And the rest of the squad was helpless to do anything but watch their captain pull himself together, in the hopes that he would actually know what to do.

   Finally, he met their gaze squarely, a stubborn set to his jaw and a determined gleam to his eye.  “Attention, squad. It appears that a member of the Nine-Nine needs our help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late! Originally this chapter had been intended to be a one-shot explaining Rosa's hypothetical origin story, and then it exploded. Next update should be 4/18; I know it's later than usual, but I'm gonna need the extra time. Enjoy!  
> Oh, also - [Kateryna Vernadskaya](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/prettylittleliars/images/f/f7/Alison-pll.png/revision/latest?cb=20120419123855)


	5. Passazhiry

   It was snowing over Czecia.

   At least, Rosa assumed it was; Eastern Europe was a paragon of bleak, pristine beauty in early February, and the blanket of clouds below the plane seemed fat with precipitation.  She could imagine it, had lived it a handful of times; the delicate wrought iron and ornate 19th-century architecture transcending from beautiful to etherial under a delicate frosting of ice, the thrum of traffic turned to a gentle slush, the wool coats and cashmere scarfs of high-fashion travelers.  For a moment, Rosa let herself lean back in her chair and pretend that she was one of them, just another starry-eyed tourist passing through. She’d find every free museum and bombard Jake’s phone with artistically rendered naked butts. She’d gag on sauerkraut and eat enough palačinky to kill a small horse.  She’d meet up with Adrian and kiss him on the Charles Bridge. You know. Normal people crap.

   The folder on her lap crinkled as she shifted, popping her dream like a soap bubble.  Back to business.

   She’d known him only as Comrade Raskolnikov, but the name on the file was Dmitry Grigorievich Arsov, and the face on the thumbnail looked like he was debating setting the camera on fire.  It was unremarkable as faces went, which was exactly how Red Room liked their trainers; the type who could walk down the street with blood on their collar and a knife in their hand and no one would give them a second glance.  Rosa wasn’t sure she would be able to pick him out of a lineup with his picture taped to the glass. Even the file seemed to agree he was boring; the only notable characteristic listed was a two-inch scar, shaped like a half-moon and stretching from his first knuckle to the base of his thumb.

   “Used to stare at that scar all the time,” Natasha said quietly, evidently noticing where she was looking.  They’d booked tickets individually, but Natasha had charmed the seat from her neighbor and left Yelena to fend for herself.  “When he was . . . coaching us.”

   Rosa darted a glance over to her, surprised; even when they had lived together, Natalia hadn’t exactly been the sharing type.  All throughout the program she’d been a small, serious thing, the darling of the trainers but never one to gloat or even smile.   She’d never mocked her Spanish though, or joined in with the harassment of the other girls, so in a way Rosa figured she owed her. Just a little.  “Wanna know a secret?” she muttered, flicking the photo over to Natasha’s lap. “I gave him that.”

   An unfamiliar expression crossed Natasha’s face; it took Rosa a split second to recognize it as surprise.  “You did not.”

   “Bit him like a dog our first time in the training ring till two other instructors pulled me off.”

   “Well.  Never let it be said you lack guts.”

   Rosa jerked her chin in acknowledgement, unsure of how to respond.  The truth was she’d thought it would be the last thing she’d ever do; he’d had her against the mat, her throat in an armlock and her leg twisted beneath her, and her eight-year-old brain had decided to take as much of him with her as possible.  So she’d bitten down until she tasted blood and a punch to the face sent her sprawling. She thought she would be shot the moment she left the ring, but not for the first time Madame Rostova had surprised her; instead of a bullet she’d been given fresh bandages, a hot meal and a solo in the next Recital.

   It was the first time she’d thought she might have a future in Red Room.

   From that moment on she’d stared at that scar like her life depended on it.  Every time he landed a punch, every time she had to tap out or he’d made her dance until her feet bled, she would wipe her mouth and bite her tongue and stare at that scar on his hand.  Maybe he hadn’t noticed, but she liked to believe he had. It was her little way of saying _I did this to you once, and someday I will do it again_.

   Welcome to someday, bitches.

   She shuffled through the rest of the file, skimming past the first forty-odd years to the part she didn’t know.   _Commended for his service to his country . .  Awarded the Medal of Nesterov for brave and valorous acts . . . Promoted to Deputy to the State Duma after distinguished twenty-year military career . . ._ “They promote people to the State Duma for beating up little girls now?”

   “Not just little girls.” Natasha lifted her plastic cup to the light, surveying the champagne inside with a critical eye.  “It’s a minor position at best, not much room for him to do real damage. You, I and the entire Russian Federation know the only valuable parts of him are his fists and his encryption key.”

   Ah, yes. The encryption key.  “Not that I’m not looking forward to getting my hands on this creep, but you’re sure we can’t get into the network any other way? Have you even tried hacking past their firewalls or whatever?”

   “First off, that’s not how anything works, so jot that down,” Natasha said, taking a measured sip and tipping her head in appreciation.  “Secondly, infiltrating a network takes time we don’t have. Every day we wait is a day closer to the Recital, and if we don’t make sure every single member of Red Room gets an invitation and then has time to get there, they’re in the wind and we’re right back where we started.  Everyone gets the invitation, everyone comes, everyone dies. Simple as that.”

   It was a plan impossible to argue, but it was also a plan that involved significant delay and being unarmed near a Red Room official, so she hated it on principle.  “We’re gonna give those girls a heart attack, you know,” she said, looking down at the file. “I barely held it together when we performed for the brass. If I found out we’d be performing in front of the entire program, I probably would have had a nervous breakdown.”

   “I nearly did anyway,” Natasha admitted.  “Threw up every night for a week beforehand.” Rosa looked over, surprised, but she merely shrugged.  “Can you blame me?”

   She really couldn’t.  The Red Room Winter Recital was the sum of everything they’d been put through for the past year, compressed into three days and performed like a play for their own survival.  First the ballet, then the physical, then the final. Then a solid week of trying to block out the memories. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

   “It was the knife points for me,” Rosa said quietly.  “The worst part, I mean. No matter how good I got I always felt like  I was gonna fall and slice my leg off.”

   “At least if I’d sliced off a leg it would’ve been over,” Natasha said dispassionately.  “Failing the oral examination just meant frying your brain and starting all over again.”

   Rosa snorted.  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but reprogramming is forever.”

   Natasha actually laughed.  “Exactly.”

   That pulled a grudging smile from Rosa, and for a weird moment it almost all felt normal.  Then Natasha’s phone chimed, and Rosa couldn’t resist a swift peek down.

> Voicemail: Clint  
>  Missed call (3): Clint  
>  Text Message: Clint  
>  Text Message: Clint  
>  Text Message: Clint

   Natasha flipped the phone over without looking, clearing her throat for good measure.  For her own part, Rosa wasn’t going to ask; she’d rip the face off anyone who stuck their nose in her and Adrian’s business, and she wasn’t about to become a hypocrite.  She wasn’t above pressing her advantage, though, so she leaned back in her chair, looked at the crappy TV screen in front of her and said, “I want to run point on this one.”

   Natasha lifted an eyebrow, although she didn’t immediately shut her down.  “Why the change of heart?”

   Rosa shrugged.  “Makes sense. You and Yelena are both active intelligence agents, if he recognizes you it’s over.  He hasn’t seen me since I was nineteen and thinks I’m dead on top of that. Bumps our odds of actually pulling this off.”

   “Solid logic, but not what I asked.”

   She’d known from the start Natasha wouldn’t be fooled, but it was worth a try.  Chewing her lip, she looked back down at the file in her hands, debating just how many cards she wanted to lay on the table.  “Arsov did a good chunk of wetwork through the nineties, right?” Natasha jerked her chin in acknowledgement. “And he was a handler before he was promoted to deputy, so he probably oversaw some Widow missions.”

   “Sounds about right.”

   “So,” she said, sending Natasha a sidelong glance to gauge her reaction, “if a Widow agent failed her first mission and needed to be eliminated, would you say the odds are good that he would’ve been the one to do it?”

   Natasha was silent for a long moment.  “I’d say the odds are excellent.”

   Rosa nodded, flexing her jaw against the contempt welling in her gut.  “Like I said, unfinished business.”

   The last time she’d ever seen Katya, it had been the night before their first mission.  They’d curled up in the same bunk the way they had when they were children and whispered to each other till nearly dawn.

 _“I wish I could go with you,”_ she’d told her _.  “I don’t even have anything I can give you for luck.”_

 _“I won’t need it,”_ Katya had said, fierce and fond.   _“I have to come back for you, don’t I? You’ll be my good luck charm.”_

   The next day she woke up alone, and she never saw Katya again.

   A niggling thought snagged in the back of her mind, breaking through the memory, and she twisted in her seat to look at Natasha more fully.  “This file seems pretty accurate for something allegedly five years out of date.”

   “I guess some of it still holds water,” Natasha said evenly, which only served to deepen Rosa’s suspicions.  She glanced at the briefcase tucked under the seat in front of them. Every file Natasha had provided had come from that briefcase, which probably explained why it hadn’t left her sight.

   “Who else you got in there?”

   “Anyone suspected of being connected to Red Room.”

   “Including us?”

   Natasha gave her a look that suggested she was being childish.  “Well, we are pretty deeply connected to Red Room, aren’t we?”

   A bit piqued, Rosa leaned back in her seat, looking back out the window at the snow clouds below.  “All I’m saying is that if your intel is as stale as you say, we’re walking into a room full of military and intelligence officials with nothing to go on but the word of a crazy person who works for the guys we’re trying to kill.  Sitting back and drinking champagne may not be the right way to go on this.”

   “It’s ginger ale,” Natasha said.

   “What?”

   Natasha held the ginger ale up to the light, the trace of a smile touching her face.  “I was almost twenty-two years old the first time I had soda. You remember the rules, you eat when told, drink when told, and take nothing from strangers.  They told us they had eyes everywhere, that if we disobeyed they’d know, and I always believed them. And then . . . I was on a plane to Shanghai, and the stewardess asked me if I wanted anything, and for some reason I decided to try it. Ordered a ginger ale, watched her open it and everything.  And lo and behold, no cyanide, no secret cameras, no black ops team descending from the heavens to stop me. I just . . . had a ginger ale.” Her lips twitched in a smile, and she lifted the cheap plastic cup to let the rim kiss her lip. “Whenever I’m on a plane, I always order ginger ale.”

   Rosa looked down at her glass of water, turning the words over in her mind.  Finally she simply held it up, tipping it toward Natasha in a toast. “To ginger ale.”

   Natasha huffed a small laugh, tapping her cup to Rosa’s.  “To ginger ale and bite marks. _Salut_.”

   “Cheers.”  Rosa tipped back the rest of the lukewarm water in one go, settling in as the seatbelt sign _ding_ ed on.

_“Ladies and gentlemen, if you’d fasten your seatbelts and lock your seats in the upright position, we will be arriving at Vaclav Havel airport in thirty minutes.  Dámy a pánové, prosím, upevněte bezpečnost-ní pásy a držte sedadla vzpřímeně. Po asi třicet minut dorazíme na letiště Václava Havla.”_

   “You ready?” Natasha asked.

   Rosa couldn’t resist; she gave Natasha a secret little smile, more bared teeth than anything.  “I’ve been ready for this for ten years.” 

* * *

   They took separate cabs to their hotel, just in case; Yelena hardly acknowledged them outside of a wink at the terminal door, and Natasha split off as soon as possible.  The cab Rosa finally landed on was as seedy as possible, guaranteed to wind around a thousand times before finally arriving. No better way to throw off a pursuer than a greedy cabby.  They’d chosen the Hotel Leonardo for their rendezvous, a quaint establishment that was a brisk stroll from their final destination. Aurélie Dupont and Marya Konn had already checked in; Adelaide Blackwell, London native, took the adjoining room next door.

   “Enjoy your flight?” Yelena asked brightly, already making herself at home on the bed nearest the door.  “I got wedged between some fat American couple prattling on about football, it was awful.”

   “You’ve survived worse,” Rosa said dryly, dropping her bag on the bed nearest the window.  She’d rested on the plane and doubted they would be doing too much sleeping, but damned if she was letting Yelena out of her sight any longer than she had to.  “I’m taking point on this.”

   That seemed to catch Yelena off-guard, but aside from a swiftly raised eyebrow she recovered quickly.  “Little Vasya’s decided to get her hands dirty at last, has she? Excellent. I suppose I could rustle up a maid’s uniform while you find your dress –”

   “No,” Natasha said, with such steel that both of them looked around.  “It’s one thing if they spot me, but you work for them. They find you somewhere you’re not supposed to be and they’ll shoot on sight.  You’re on backup on this one, that’s final.”

   Yelena’s mouth had fallen open slightly, and after a moment she closed it with an audible swallow.  “Very well.”

   Natasha nodded, satisfied.  Her phone gave a lonely buzz from the table; all three elected to ignore it.  “All right, ladies,” Natasha said, yanking the curtains shut and turning back to face them, “we have twenty-four hours exactly.  Let’s plan a murder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi lovelies, I'm soso sorry this is late! I've had some family emergencies and I'm apparently working two jobs now so life's a little crazy. I'm aiming to release the next chapter in May but I've burned through all my pre-written material, so writing's going a little slow right now. THAT DOES NOT MEAN I'M ABANDONING THIS, I just don't want to make promises I can't keep. Thanks so much for your patience, all reviews are appreciated!!


	6. Vory

   The Grand Hotel Bohemia looked like the kind of place where history was made, where writers finished their masterpieces and people met their soulmates every day.  The floodlights made the yellow plaster glow gold, and the copper roof had long ago faded into a cheerful mint green that only added to its charm. This particular night it was sparkling like a glass of champagne, bursting with camera flashes and crisp military uniforms and bright silk gowns.  The very air itself held a buzz, brimming with energy as passersby whispered and stared and tried to catch a glimpse of someone they might know. On the surface it was a gala like any other; a bunch of military officials rubbing shoulders and drinking expensive wine under the guise of caring about some obscure illness or disabled veterans.

   With Red Room, however, nothing was ever so simple.

   “Remember, we don’t know who knows what in there,” Yelena said, making eye contact with Rosa in the rearview.  True to her flair for the dramatic, she had actually found an honest-to-God chauffeur hat, and her speech was tinged with a Parisian French accent.  “They’ll assume you’re there to trade information, same as them, and they’ll try to get anything they can out of you without paying. Act offended. Give them nothing.  Better yet, talk to as few people as possible, they’ll all assume you’re there with someone else.”

   “Not my first time undercover, Yelena,” Rosa grumbled, adjusting the clasp at her neck.  She had refused to wear a dress out of sheer practicality, and so had settled instead for a black silk romper so loose and flowy that it could almost pass for one.  It sat high on her throat but was sleeveless and backless in a way that should hopefully draw attention away from her face. They hadn’t had time to dig up any face-altering technology, but the auburn wig and blue contact lenses had worked wonders.  She had a revolver in her clutch but was otherwise unarmed; she’d known from the first that she wouldn’t be able to bring anything more substantial, but if they pulled this off cleanly enough they wouldn’t need weapons at all. “Who’s got the invitation?”

   “Here.” Natasha reached into the apron of her maid’s dress and passed back an ivory-and-gold slip of paper, inviting her to join the Czech Army’s private benefit dinner for the Jeřábková Municipal Orphanage.  “Hold onto that, you may be asked to show it again inside.”

   Rosa held the invitation up to the light, squinting for invisible ink or in-paper designs.  “How did you get this again?”

   “You sure you want to know, officer?”  Yelena gave her a jaunty look in the rearview, pulling into the queue of cars outside the hotel.  “Earpiece check, ladies.”

   “ _Romanova, raz, dva, tri_.”

   “ _Petrova, raz, dva, tri._ ”

   “ _Belova, raz, dva, tri._ ”  Satisfied, Yelena pulled up to the entrance, offering a courteous nod to the staff opening the door.  “All right, ladies, good luck.”

   Rosa gathered her purse, shrugged her coat over her shoulders, and stepped out into the night.

   Most of the guests were filtering in groups of two or three, but she blended in to the fine silks and satins the closer she got to the building. Her heels clicked sharply against the cobblestones, and not for the first time she cursed the strict dress code of the old guard. There was no place here for Rosa Diaz, NYPD detective; tonight she was fully Vasilisa Petrova, Soviet spy. No running, no shooting, no fighting, just good old-fashioned espionage. She kept her head high and her strides long and graceful with a tinge of arrogance; as Madame always said, the majority of spywork was in body language alone.  Act like you belong and no one will spare you a second look. As it was, she breezed past the entrance queue without a backward glance, holding her invitation up imperiously, and the attendant at the door barely raised an eyebrow before taking it. A quick sweep of a handheld black light over it revealed the symbol in the right hand corner. “Welcome to the Hotel Bohemia, madame,” the attendant said, and with a curt nod she moved inside.

   The Boccaccio Ballroom was famous in certain cultural circles, and Rosa could immediately see why.  The room was bathed in rich golds and burgundies, its vaulted ceilings adorned in crimson patterns and its mahogany floors shining with polish.  The light was soft and warm as a candle, illuminating starched linen tablecloths and swirling gold inlay so that the air itself held a gleam. It was a room designed to feel intimate no matter how many hundreds of patrons graced its tables, but with this particular crowd the effect was less welcoming than watchful. The intelligence officers and spymasters milled and murmured, exchanging light comments riddled with code.  Everyone seemed to be speaking out of the corner of their mouth to one person while keeping their eyes on another, and Rosa realized with a jolt that she recognized more than one face from missions lifetimes ago. The more things changed.

   Yelena’s voice crackled to life in her earpiece.  “Adjust your camera for me, darling, the angle is giving me motion sickness.”  Rosa gave an extra toss of her hair for good measure, but adjusted the pin accordingly.  “Much better. Good turnout this year. Status, Natasha?”

   “His room is on the eleventh floor, and the servant’s entrance is being guarded,” Natasha said.  “I’m headed in through the main lobby instead. You got the cameras covered?”

   “One moment, please . . . and . . .” There was a soft clatter of keys, although Yelena hardly sounded concerned; Natasha had written the program, after all, and Natasha’s codes never failed.  “Got it. Five-minute loop on the cameras, should be at least an hour before they figure it out. You’re clear to move.”

   Rosa could practically see it; Natalia with a scarf pulled up over that trademark red hair, gliding through the lobby with her eyes darting around to acknowledge any potential threats.  For her own part, she had noticed thirty separate shoulder holsters scattered through the crowd, twenty knives strapped under gowns and fifteen suspiciously heavy purses. Her own little six-shooter had gone from underwhelming to laughable.  She might as well have walked in naked.

   “Yelena,” she murmured, keeping her lips as still as possible, “read the room.”

   “If you want a dossier on each we’ll be here all night, I’m afraid,” Yelena said.  “I’m seeing CIA, KDB, MI6, ÚZSI, Mossad . . . bloody hell, is that one Black Air?”

   “Ours?”

   “If your referring to your more recent American compatriots, no one who would recognize you.  As far as old friends from Red Room . . . none that I can see,which is hardly surprising with the Recital coming up.  They most likely only sent Arsov to keep him out of the way, he always did have a habit of changing things up last-minute – ah.”

   Rosa turned her head, and there he was.  She hardly even bothered looking at his face; there were at least a dozen nondescript Slavic men with dark hair and military dress scattered throughout the room.  But he was reaching out, gesturing to a waiter, and on his hand was that telltale half-moon. Something icy trickled down the back of her spine just looking at him, a childhood boogeyman come to life.

   “Vasya has made visual contact with the target,” Yelena said.  “Natalia, go.”

   “On it,” Natasha said as Rosa handed her coat to  nearby attendant and began to walk, circling the ballroom with a critical eye.  A small bundle of dancers was sweeping in elegant circles as a string quartet played, and there were more than a few patrons clearly scoping the perimeter.  True to form, Arsov already had a nearly-empty flute of champagne in his hand; if he kept it up he would be finished in the next five minutes, and that was step one in the bag.  She would have to linger to achieve her second objective, though, and that was where the danger lay. Arsov had the tolerance of a true Soviet, and by the time he was drunk enough to approach a thousand things could have gone wrong.

   Natasha’s voice cut through her earpiece, speaking flawless Czech.  “ _I need to clean Room 1167, please_.”

   Rosa could barely make out the answering voice, but the tone was curt.  “ _I don’t understand, Mr. Ilych, he was very upset –_ ”  Voices again louder.  “ _Of course, of course, I apologize, gentlemen._ ”  There was a brief pause as she got clear.  “Dammit. Looks like this is gonna be harder than we thought.  Yelena?”

   “Guard’s not changing for the next three hours, and they’ll most likely have the same instructions.  Let me see . . .”

   “Any windows facing the alley?” Natasha suggested.  “I could climb.”

   “Best view in the house, I’m afraid, but there’s always something . . .”

   “I apologize, but have we – met?”

   Rosa blinked rapidly at the man suddenly filling her entire field of vision.  He was obviously American, with dark chestnut skin, a meticulously groomed beard and a bold-cut suit.  He was smiling at her, puzzled but genuine, which was good, because Rosa’s blood had frozen in her veins.  They’d definitely met. Well, if you could define kicking him in the face while escaping a heist gone wrong as “meeting”.   _Shit._

   “I doubt it,” she said, keeping her voice clipped and vaguely Germanic.  “I haven’t been this way since the Wall fell.” Because it would be more suspicious not to, she offered a hand. “Anja Leitz.”

   “Alphonso McKenzie.”  He gave her hand a firm shake, his eyes still focused a little too hard on hers.  “I’m sorry, I must have you confused with someone else. Are you accompanying anyone tonight?”

   There was a burst of noise in her earpiece; it took all her training not to flinch.  It took a moment for her to recognize the sound as laughter. “Er – no,” she said as smoothly as possible, barely resisting the urge to rub her ear.  “Working alone, as I prefer.”

   He raised an eyebrow. “Well.  I guess in that case I shouldn’t keep you.”

   It was an invitation, but Arsov was moving further away and every second here was a second closer to blowing her cover.  “I suppose not,” she said, brushing her hand over his arm and offering her most charming smile. “If you’ll excuse me.” And she darted past him further into the ballroom, careful to shield her face from view.

   “What the hell’s so funny?” Natasha hissed.

   “Oh, Natasha,” Yelena said, and her tone was nothing short of gleeful.  “My apologies to Agent Barton, it appears we could have used him after all.”

   “What?” Natasha said warily.  Rosa couldn’t blame her.

   “No adjoining rooms, windows without bars, or servant entrances,” Yelena reeled off.  “There is, however, a rather nice set of air ducts directly to your left.”

   Rosa snorted; Natasha swore. Air ducts were, hands down, one of the most unpleasant aspects of the job.  Cramped, pitch-black and caked with dust, typically there was barely enough room to slide forward on your belly.  A part of the life that James Bond had not prepared them for. “Thank you,” Rosa murmured, accepting a glass of champagne and hiding her smile behind it.  “Up you go, Natasha.”

   “I want you both to know I hate you,” she grumbled.  Rosa tossed a smile at a nearby mirror for Yelena’s benefit and resumed her walk around the perimeter.  Arsov was by the hors d’oeuvres now, chatting with a young woman in a green silk dress. Salmon crostini and poached quail eggs; hardly subtle.  Her package would have to be delivered in the champagne.

   The package in question was currently residing in a secret compartment in the ring on her right hand.  She had no idea how Yelena kept breezing through airport security with any number of poisons hidden away on her person, but tonight at least she was hardly complaining.   _“Nasty little concoction,”_ she had said, holding up a vial of white powder. _“Rapid-release organophosphate.  It needs a relatively high dose, but once enough has been ingested it can cause heart failure in a grown man within five minutes.  Nearly impossible to detect in food or drink and all symptoms mimic a heart attack.”_

_“What about tox screen?”_

_“I’m sorry, Detective, do we intend for Red Room to continue existing long enough to receive a toxicology report?”_

_“Good point.”_

   So here she was, dressed to kill and waiting for the opportune moment.  But the encryption key was only half of the equation, after all; Red Room wasn’t quite stupid enough to trust their entire secure network to one drunk trainer’s ability to hold onto a flash drive.  There was something else they needed, preferably while he was still alive.

   He threw back his head and laughed at something the girl had said.  He drained his glass, still chuckling, and set the flute down on a nearby table.

   Got it.

   With a quick glance around she ditched her glass and slipped across the room, weaving her way through couples and groups without taking her eyes off the table.  A waiter passed the table and she almost broke her stride, but apparently he wasn’t being paid enough to both serve and clean and kept walking. Arsov was full engaged with his mark, their conversation clearly intense despite the light tones, and his eyes never wandered as she slid closer.  She snagged a napkin off a nearby table, folding it over her hand and opening her purse in one smooth motion. Three more paces, duck past a waiter, look around casually and –

   She plucked the glass up by the stem and swiped it into her bag.

   “Excellent,” Yelena said in her ear.  “Vasya has achieved the first objective; I repeat, we have the fingerprint. Natalia, how are the vents?”

   “Lovely,” Natasha grunted.  “Looks like I’m gonna drop down right in the center of his room – we sure it’s unoccupied?”

   “He won’t want anyone hanging around his things without him,” Yelena said.  “The escorts won’t arrive until the gala ends, so you’ve got at least two hours.  Surely he can’t be that messy?”

   He could and they all knew it.  Red Room had a strict regime of cleanliness when it came to their Widows, but were considerably more lax toward their trainers.   “And the key is definitely in the room,” Natasha said, not quite a question. Yelena clicked her tongue in annoyance.

   “As I’ve said, after what happened with Milana it’s SOP to leave anything with sensitive data in a locked hotel room with no less than two guards whenever initiating contact with more than one agent from a competing organization.”

   “That’s very specific.”

   “It was a very specific cock-up.” A soft beep interrupted her.  “A maid is coming by with a cleaning cart, they shouldn’t hear you drop. On my mark . . . now.”

   There was a muffled _thud_ in Rosa’s ear as she pretended to examine a painting on the wall.  “I’m in. Commencing search.”

   “Excellent,” Yelena said calmly, the way she always did when things had gone horribly wrong, “Vasya, pick up your phone and pretend to take a call.”

   Rosa didn’t hesitate, dabbing at a random spot on her phone and holding it to her ear.  “Hello?”

   “Arsov has spotted you.”

   “Am I blown?” she asked sharply, shifting her clutch so her revolver was in easier reach. “Should I abort?”

   “Negative, if we don’t complete all objectives this was pointless – there’s a chance he wasn’t looking at you, just – _shit_.”

   “He doesn’t recognize you, Rosa,” Natasha said, low and steady.  “It’s been over ten years, you said so yourself, you’ve changed a lot since then.  You’ve got this.”

   “Whatever you do, make it quick,” Yelena said, sounding considerably less assured.  “If he finds out about the maid that never was trying to get into his rooms we’re all –”

   “Got it, thanks,” Rosa cut in, and lowered the phone just as the click of polished dress shoes grew near.  A whiff of cheap cologne caught in her nose, bringing with it a flash of memories far more nauseating than any smell.  It was him.

   “Allow me,” said a voice in her ear, and a flute of champagne appeared at her elbow.  She took a deep breath, steadied her nerves, and tipped her head sideways to meet Arsov’s eyes.

   He was older; it was a stupid thought, but up close the subtle lines around his eyes and the new scar splitting his eyebrow were impossible to miss.  He was smiling the smile he usually reserved for the Madames; warm, charming and utterly empty.

   He didn’t recognize her.  Had no clue who she was.

   “Thank you,” she said in English, pitching her voice low and keeping her accent crisp and polished as Yelena’s.

   “Of course. Such a beautiful flower should only be watered with the finest champagne.”

   The two deadly assassins in her ear made audible gagging noises.  She ignored them, tilting her head as though charmed and tapping her glass against his.  “Adelaide Blackwell.”

   “Dmitry Arsov.”  He shifted so that his medals caught in the light.  “Deputy to the State Duma.”

   “Russian,” she said, raising a single eyebrow in surprise.  “You’re far from home.”

   “As are you, Madame.  I must say, I was unaware that our Western neighbors cared so deeply about the plight of Eastern orphans.”

   Clumsy ass.  She briefly considered taking offense, but Adelaide Blackwell was classier than that.  “My employers have a . . . soft spot, for causes without much hope. They sent me to gather information on any unmet needs.”

   “I’m sure they could find a use for you somewhere,” he said, and that was definitely a leer on his face.  Rosa would take and had taken a great many hits for the team, but she firmly drew the line at sleeping with a child murderer.

   “Easy, Vasya darling,” Yelena said in her ear.  “Natasha, how are we doing?”

   “Still looking.  He seems to have actually had the foresight to put it in the safe – think I can crack it, but it’ll take a minute.  Guards?”

   “Haven’t heard a thing.  Judging by the look on Vasya’s face, you’ve got about ten minutes before she blows our cover by stabbing our friend in the throat with a cocktail fork.”

   Rosa flicked the camera in annoyance under the guise of adjusting her hair, hoping she came off as demure rather than disgusted.  “Our support for the children would be considerably less direct. And, of course, somewhat dependent on reciprocity.”

   “Of course,” he said smoothly.  “Shall we discuss this further?” Exactly as she’d feared, he gestured to the dance floor.  It was an old-school espionage trick, even by Red Room standards; the music was always louder, and it was hard to eavesdrop without actively stalking someone around the room. She knew this.  It didn’t mean she was happy about it.

   “Of course,” she said, and with only the fraction of a hesitation she took his hand and allowed herself to be led away.

   He swung her into a waltz the second they met the dance floor, and Rosa had to consciously work to keep her steps just short of graceful; maybe it was paranoia, but this was hardly the first time they had danced, and she couldn’t help but worry the similarity would catch in his memory.  Of course, this was a beautiful ballroom and not a moldering old mansion with a half-dead boombox warbling out “The Waltz of the Flowers”, but one couldn’t be too careful. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen you at a gala before,” Arsov went on, guiding her in a small circle.

   “I was owed a favor and received a ticket,” she said, allowing him to pull her into a dip.  His arms closed around her, and she had to clamp down on a reflexive shiver. “Surely a man of your stature can appreciate the value of calling in a few debts.”

   It was the wrong thing to say; he huffed, spinning her out and continuing on with considerably more distance between them.  “It is a poor excuse for a man who relies on the charity of better men to make a name for himself.”

_It is a poor excuse for an agent who relies on the skills of better operatives to make a name for herself, little swan._

   She jerked, managing to turn it into an odd flourish at the last moment.  “True enough,” she allowed, struggling to disguise her contempt. “I suppose my employers and I can appreciate a well-connected man.”   _Or maybe one with an original thought in his head, you bastard._

   “Oh.” He brightened immediately.  “That I can appreciate as well. We have friends in all manner of high places, from the newest of agencies to the oldest of guards.”

   “Natalia?” Yelena muttered.

   “Two numbers, trying to get the last.”

   “Glad to hear it,” Rosa said.  “The newer recruits take so long to train up, wouldn’t you say?”

   “Is that what you’re looking for? Experience?”

   Oh, _God_.  “Not necessarily,” she said.  “More a certain level of . . . prestige.  We’re a relatively young establishment, and while our agents are experienced our collective history is lacking.  Especially in this part of the world. A mutually beneficial network of information could profit everyone involved.”

   “And what part of the world would do you deal in?”

   “Oh, here and there.”  She turned her head as he pulled her ever closer, their chests almost brushing.  “Our best are in Southeast Asia, a few in Latin America, and a few . . . closer to home.”  She smiled at him, her best Yelena Belova I-know-something-you-don’t smirk, and just as predicted his eyes began to gleam.  Nothing like the promise of being spied on to make people cooperate. He raised an eyebrow, aiming for unimpressed but merely looking intrigued.  The song ended, their dance fading out with it, and Rosa saw her chance.

   Gently, delicately, she reached over to a nearby tray of champagne flutes, her back carefully turned to him.  A squeeze of fingers and the ring unlocked, its tiny compartment swinging open and spilling a fine white powder over the golden bubbles.  It barely foamed, dissolving before it hit the bottom. Rosa had to hand it to her; Yelena knew her poisons. “Perhaps a partnership would be in order?”

   His fingers closed around the glass, and when she looked up there wasn’t the trace of suspicion on his face.  “Perhaps a joint mission to . . . deal with the situation in the South China Sea would be in order.”

   Rosa neither knew nor cared about the situation in the South China Sea.  “Of course. I’ll need to see about other offers, naturally.”

   “Naturally.” he said, already shifting his attention to a pretty young thing behind her.

   “Now hold on, Vasya,” Yelena said, sounding suddenly interested.  “Let’s hear a little more about that situation, shall we?”

   Rage – good, clean, honest rage like she hadn’t felt in a while – welled up in Rosa’s gut.  “In that case, shall we say rendezvous in then, shall we say?” she said sweetly, offering him a gentle pat on the arm.  “Now if you’ll excuse me.” With a lingering backward glance, she ducked past him toward the restroom. Both Yelena and Natasha exclaimed sharply, demanding to know what she was doing, but she paid no attention; Arsov wasn’t going anywhere for the next thirty seconds, and frankly at this point she did not give a damn.  She burst through the door, barely pausing to check all the stalls were empty before whirling to face the mirror.

   “Let’s make one thing perfectly clear,” she snarled, gripping the counter so tightly her knuckles whitened.  “I am not here for you. I am not here for your war games or politics or any of this spy shit. I am here to make sure twelve little girls are not systematically tortured for the rest of their lives.  That’s it. I am not here to be your little helper monkey while you plan whatever 4D chess game you’re playing for your next adventure. You want that, do it on your own time. Understood?”

   “She understands, now get out there and get your eyes back on Arsov before we’re all blown!” Natasha hissed.

   Rosa gritted her teeth.  “Yelena?”

   “I understand.” Yelena sounded irritated, of course, but underneath it was something else.  “Apologies, et cedera, now if you don’t mind.”

   With one last glare at her reflection, Rosa adjusted her wig and stormed back outside, remembering to school her face into something not murderous at the last second. She snatched up another flute of champagne, scanning the room for Arsov.  He hadn’t wandered far, and was currently pretending to be cultured by studying a framed painting on the wall. A dancer, wreathed in spring-colored greens and golds while striking a precise Arabesque. A ballerina. Figured. By some miracle of God, his glass was still mostly full; there was no way to tell how much poison he’d ingested, but by her best estimate it wasn’t nearly enough.  This night was starting to feel like it would never end.

   “Natasha,” Yelena said, suddenly sharp.

   “What is it?”

   “The guards are checking the room.”

   “What?”

   “They just tried the door, now it looks like they’re bickering about who was supposed to have the room key, but they’re definitely about to sweep it.”

   “How much time do I have?”  Natasha asked, as alarm swept through Rosa’s body.   _How the hell did we miss this?_

   “My best guess? Forty-five seconds.”

   “I’m going to hide, but they’ll see the vent is open.” For the first time in Rosa’s memory, Natasha actually sounded strained.  “I’ll try to fight my way out, but Vasya, you need to get out of there.”

   “We are not leaving anyone behind,” Rosa snapped, popping open the gun pocket in her purse and lengthening her stride toward the exit.  “Yelena, see if you can cause a power outage, call in an emergency, anything to distract them.” Silence. “Yelena?”

   “ _Excuse me, gentlemen?_ ”

   Yelena was speaking Czech, and for a moment Rosa was so thrown she couldn’t comprehend the switch; her voice was high, breathy, and giggly in a way that suggested wine-drunk.  There was a indistinguishable murmur from the other side, confused and wary. “ _I was with Mr. Ilyich last night and I think I left my phone in his room?_ ” God, Rosa could just see it now; the sphinx-like smile, the fur coat slipping down her shoulder to reveal the strap of a dress.  “ _If I could just –_ ”

   She couldn’t quite hear their response, but she got the tone just fine.

   “ _Seriously?  It was the latest iPhone, you know how expensive those are? Now please, just –”_

   “Clear,” Natasha said softly.

   “ _Ma’am, stay back!_ ”

   “ _Fine!_ ” Yelena snapped, the looseness gone from her voice.  “ _And see if our service caters to Mr. Ilyich again!_ ”  A moment of tense silence fell, and then she was back with her normal tones.  “Status?”

   “Back in the vents, headed to the service exit,” Natasha said.  “Objective achieved.”

   “Headed to the main elevator, objective achieved,” Yelena said.  “Vasya?”

   “Package delivered, observing to ensure objective,” Rosa said behind her glass.  “Wait –”

   Arsov had dug out his phone, lifting it to his ear with a scowl.  Rosa’s entire body went cold. “His guards are telling him about Yelena.”

   “How can you tell?” Yelena asked, although she sounded concerned.

   “Because he looks like he’s about to head up there now.”  Worse than that; he had set down his champagne on a side table, lowering his phone and trailing his eyes toward the exit.  Rosa lengthened her stride to nearly a run, abandoning all pretense at speaking into a phone as she dashed after him.

   “Yelena, get out of there!”

   “The first thing he’s going to do is check the cameras,” Natasha said rapidly.  “If he realizes they’ve been tampered with we’re blown.”

   “Vasya, _do something!_ ” Yelena snapped.

   Rosa reached out to Arsov and grabbed him by the elbow unthinkingly, yanking him back to her in a manner that was far more Rosa the Cop than Adelaide the Spy.  He turned back, surprised, and she swallowed her gorge and leaned up to murmur in his ear.

   “It’s a beautiful painting, isn’t it?”

   He looked a bit startled, but intrigued enough to glance down at his phone briefly before tucking it back in his pocket.  “I suppose so. I’ve always thought there was a certain . . . grace, to Renoir.”

   It’s a Degas and they both know it; he’s testing her, feeling out her cover and her knowledge base alike, but she doesn’t have time for games.  “Indeed,” she said, and lowered her voice still further. “Of course, from what I’ve heard, she has nothing on your girls.”

   His reaction was immediate; he froze, nearly dropping his glass, and his eyes snapped to hers as though seeing it for the first time.  “What do you mean by that?”

   “Dumb hardly suits you,” she scoffed, and pulled back enough to give him a venomous smile.  “Your girls, your agents, your Widows.”

   She saw his hand twitch reflexively toward his gun, but it was more than his skin was worth to make a scene here and they both knew it.  “How did you –?”

   “Good help is hard to find these days.  It appears one of your operatives isn’t as loyal as you thought.” She smiled at him, angelic, and she briefly read murder in his eyes.

   “What do you want?”

   “From you?” She glanced down demurely, trailing a finger along the rim of her glass as she considered.  “Meet me at the National Gallery, tomorrow, 1700 hours. Bring anyone and my employer and I will be in the wind.  Come alone, and you might stop a leak before it truly starts.”

   Arsov, because he wasn’t a complete idiot, seemed unconvinced.  “And what do you get from all this?”

   “A chance to work with someone who knows more than whispers in the dark.”  She reached back for his glass of champagne, holding it up to him as she offered hers.  “Do we have an agreement?”

   He looked at her, long and hard, and a glimmer of recognition seemed to spark in his eye.  For a moment she thought he would reject her, even shove past to go to his guards, but there was greed in his eyes, and the promise of glory by hunting out a mole was too much to resist.  As she’d known it would be. “To new friends,” he said, offering his glass.

   “To new friends and the old,” she said, and tipped their glasses together.  With a devilish grin and a reckless hunch, she threw her head back and tipped the champagne down all in one go.  She looked back up just in time to see him do the same.

 _Bingpot_.

   She stepped back, eyes intent on his face.  He seemed unfazed at first, smacking his lips and scanning the crowd with suspicion.  “How many of you are here tonight?” he asked, shaking his head slightly as though to dislodge a fly.

   “Just me,” she said, noticing the color rising rapidly at his throat.  “I was all that was required.”

   He huffed a laugh, shaking his head again and reaching up to rub at his upper arm.  “I’m sure you were. I should think . . . I think . . .”

   He swayed on the spot, and Rosa put out a steadying arm.  “Are you all right?” He nodded, brow knitted, but when he tried to right himself he tripped over his own feet.  “Shall we get some air? You look a bit peaky.”

   Yelena’s toxin must have been faster working than even she thought, because Arsov didn’t even argue.  She linked their arms together as best she could and began limping out of the ballroom, careful to add a drunken sway to their steps to avoid unwanted attention.  It worked like a charm; hardly anyone even spared them a glance, and those that did pressed on with a roll of their eyes. She didn’t even bother collecting her coat before stepping out into the Vienna winter.  With any luck they wouldn’t be here long.

   Arsov was well and truly staggering now, clutching at the Rosa’s arm alike.  She seized the opportunity to guide him away, out of the brightly-lit street and toward the side alley.  The preferred vomit receptacle of drinks everywhere. It was early enough in the evening that no other partygoers had had the same idea; a quick glance around told her they were completely alone.  “You don’t look so good, Arsov,” she said, and for the first time she let Rosa color her voice. “Maybe you should sit this one out.”

   “I don’t –” he broke off, spinning around the best he could and almost falling as a result.  “Who are you?”

   She bared her teeth, looked around one last time, and couldn’t resist.  “ _You don’t remember?_ ” she asked in Russian, and swept the wig off her head.  Black curls tumbled down around her face, and Arsov’s eyes bulged.

   “ _You!_ ” he spat, except it turns into a cough.  He tried to pull his weapon; she kicked it away effortlessly.

   “ _Natalia sends her regards._ ”  She grabbed him by the back of the hair, yanking his head back to look her in the eye. “ _You trained us well, Comrade Raskolnikov. Enjoy hell._ ”

   He opened his mouth, but only a high-pitched whine emerged as his eyes wheeled like an animal’s.  His hands came up to clutch weakly at his chest, foam dribbling at his bottom lip, and Dmitry Arsov collapsed to his knees in the snow.  His shoulders gave horrific series of jerks, violent at first, but slower, softer, until with one last rattling breath, everything was still.

   “Is he dead?” Natasha said finally.

   “Um . . .”  There was a faint buzzing noise in Rosa’s head, scattering her thoughts and leaving her feeling oddly blank.  “Hang on –” Careful not to stain the knees of her suit, she knelt down in the snow to grope around at Arsov’s throat.  Nothing. “Think so, yeah.”

   “Are you certain?” Yelena said, sharp as a blade.  “Are you absolutely certain, Vasya?”

   “He’s dead,” she snapped, too loudly; still no one. “I know what it looks like. Rendezvous in two.”  And with one last look down she vanished, melting down the alley to emerge at the other side. She kept her footsteps silent and her ears open, straining for a scream or shout or anything to indicate a guest had found a body in the snow.  But there was nothing, only the faint whistle of wind and the rumble of an engine as the familiar black car pulled up in front of her.

   “Clear,” she said, climbing in.

   “Clear,” Natasha said.

   “Clear,” Yelena said, and peeled off into traffic.

   They’d won.

   She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, letting her head thunk back against the seat.  For a moment, none of them spoke; the moment felt enormous somehow, almost dreamlike in its execution. They’d done it.  They’d actually done it. A high-ranking member of Red Room was dead, and it was because of them.

   Taking another deep breath, she raised her head to look up front.  Yelena had her eyes fixed firmly on the road, porcelain skin seeming paler than usual in the harsh yellow street light.  Natasha was looking back out the window, probably checking for pursuing vehicles, but after a moment she closed her eyes briefly and turned back to look at Rosa.

   Rosa let out a snort in spite of herself.

   “Shut up,” Natasha grumbled, wiping a smudge of dust off her nose and ignoring the streaks covering her clothes and hair.  “Anyone see you?”

   “Nope. Clean as can be.”  She pulled the heels from her feet with a quiet groan of appreciation.  “Objective achieved.”

   Natasha nodded slowly, a smile spreading across her face.  “So. Coffee?”

   Rosa looked around.  “Seriously?”

   She shrugged.  “We need an Internet connection to send out the invitations.”

   “We’re going to infiltrate the Red Room secure server from a cafe in the middle of the night?  Looking like this?”

   “They’ve seen weirder.”

   Rosa looked at a moment longer, then settled back in her seat.  “What the hell, we’ve earned it. Then on to Murmansk?”

   Yelena nodded, her fingers whitening on the steering wheel.  “On to Murmansk.”

   Rosa let her head fall against the window, looking at the snow swirling against the glass.  It was quiet outside, the world dimmed by the dark and the snow, and even as sirens began to wail in the distance she felt a deep feeling of peace.   _We got him, Katya,_ she thought, somewhere between a statement and a prayer.   _We’re almost home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! That one took FOREVER. Not too late though! Hope I didn't disappoint :) Next chapter should be up in June - if I can set a date, I'll update this. Thanks for reading, y'all!


	7. Devochki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey lovelies! I am SO SO sorry for how late this is, but I genuinely did not think I would be able to post in June at all, so I guess this is a step up. I'll be irregular in posting from now on but have no intention of abandoning this. Enjoy!

_She was going to die._

_The hand at the back of her neck pressed down harder, shoving her even deeper into the icy water.  She struggled, but his grip was like iron and her arms were weak and heavy with lack of oxygen. Just as she thought she would break, would suck in a lungful of water and choke on it, he hauled her back, out of the freezing water and into the frigid air.  Water streamed from her hair and clogged up her sight, but the bright light over their head nearly blinded her anyway. She wrenched in a breath and immediately spat it back out, tasting the blood and grime in the water that had come with it._

_The man holding her throat spoke.  “State your name.”_

_She was shivering violently, could barely force her voice out between her lips.  “Me llamo Vasilisa Petrova –”  She cut off with a cry as the hand gave a cruel yank to her hair._

_“Russian!”_

_Russian, not Spanish, she had to remember, Alejandra was dead, they’d told her Alejandra was dead.  “My name is Vasilisa Petrova.”_

_“State your cover.”_

_She coughed, her brain reeling. “I . . . I am one of twenty-eight Black Widows with the Red –”_

_Her head was shoved under again, her limbs flailing uselessly as water flooded her throat, leaving her sputtering and gasping and barely aware that she had broken the surface.  “Your_ cover _!”_

_“I am one of twenty-eight Black –”_

_“Again!”_

_“Ballerinas!” she screamed, bracing herself against the edge of the tub as he made to push her down again.  “I am one of twenty-eight young ballerinas with the Bolshoi.  Training is hard, but the glory of Soviet culture, and the warmth of my parents . . . my . . . parents . . .” A flash of memory, familiar faces that completely derailed her train of thought.  Mama – Papa – they were dead, they were dead and she’d never see them again. Papa told her so. “Makes up for . . . makes . . . No, por favor no lo vuelvas a hacer –”_

_“Enough.”  It wasn’t her handler, but the man in front of her, the one in the nice chair who was always watching but never spoke.  The hand on her back threw her to the floor, her knees landing with bruising force directly in front of the chair.  A different hand touched her chin and she flinched, but it was soothing, kind, tilting her up to look at him.  “To your feet, little swan.”_

_It was the hardest thing she had ever done; her legs were numb and her lungs felt like fire, and even struggling to her knees felt like climbing a mountain.  One foot under her, then the other, then a massive swell of effort to stagger upright. The man cleared his throat, and she remembered herself. Parade rest, feet in fourth, hands behind her back. Even without feeling her feet, she barely wobbled. She could do this._

_“State your true mission.”_

_She cleared her throat, rasping away the last of the water before speaking.  “My name is Vasilisa Petrova.  I am one of twenty-eight Black Widows with the Red Room.  Training is hard, but the glory of Soviet Supremacy, and the warmth of . . . the warmth of –”_

_It wasn’t right, and she quailed instinctively against the slap that never came.  Instead he tipped her head back and forth, examining her face with a critical eye.  “Whom do you serve?”_

_She stood up straighter.  “I serve at the pleasure of Papa.  He serves at the pleasure of Red Room.  We serve at the pleasure of Mother Russia and the supreme Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.”_

_“And how do you serve?”_

_This she knew.  “However my country needs me.”_

_The man nodded approvingly, looking over her head at the trainer behind her.  “Let her rest, Raskolnikov.  She clearly understands what matters.  The rest will come.”  He stood, buttoning his coat and giving her one last squeeze on the shoulder.  “Keep up the good work, little swan.  You’re a particularly exquisite dancer.”_

_“Yes, Papa.”_

   Rosa jerked awake, gasping for air that got stuck halfway down.  For a moment she had no idea where she was; then the dingy floral wallpaper and musty wooden furniture of their rented apartment swam into view, and it all came flooding back.  She dropped her head back against the mattress with a groan. Nightmares were nothing new, but she hadn’t had a genuine flashback in a while. This mission just got better and better.

   She’d thought it was her own brain that had woken her, but a muffled voice from the other side of the wall made her realize it was Natasha.  She didn’t mean to listen, but the walls were thin as an old rag and Natasha was clearly pacing right beside it. “That’s not what this is about . . . because you would have insisted on coming with and – because this isn’t your job, Clint! You don’t always have to come swooping in . . . I know, _I know_ , but some things  I have to do for myself – hey, that is not what I said . . .”  Her voice dropped out as she wandered away, and Rosa hauled herself upright with a sigh.  Clearly she wasn’t the only one on edge. This mission was going to drive all three of them insane if they didn’t wrap things up soon.

   They’d caught a flight to Moscow before heading on to Murmansk; direct flights from Murmansk to Prague were available but uncommon, and would draw much more attention than the thousands of travelers Zhukovsky International saw every day.  Walking through Murmansk had been . . . odd, to say the least. It was exactly the way she’d left it, bleak and industrial but with bright splashes of color scattered like patchwork throughout the brick and mortar. They’d seen surprisingly little of the town, considering the manor was only forty kilometers away.  The occasional outing had been strictly to improve their camouflage abilities and heavily supervised besides. Walking freely through the streets with Natasha and Yelena at her side had seemed like a fever dream she might have had as a little girl, and even the brief journey to get food before finding lodging had been rife with memories.

   There was the fountain they’d sat beside on their first field trip, wide-eyed and almost afraid to breathe as they scribbled observations in their notebooks.  She hadn’t noticed the obvious tail standing in the northwest corner. The welts on her thighs had taken a week to fade.

   There was the first store Eva had been tasked with robbing, slipping in and out quick as a dream with an enormous bottle of vodka hidden in her coat.  They’d actually been allowed to keep it, toasting late into the night and bickering over who got the last swallow.

   There was the blini stand where Katya had seduced her first mark, accepting the pastry he’d bought her with a blush and a smile.  She’d seemed so worldly then, _Lolita_ in the flesh, but she’d shoved the pastry into Vasya’s hands the second she rejoined the group and barely spoken the rest of the trip.  She’d been fifteen. The mark was at least sixty.

   Rosa had managed to shove a great many things out of her mind in her time at Red Room, but the revulsion on Katya’s face had never left her.  When the word came out that their first missions would be assassinations, it had almost been a relief. No groping, no wandering hands, just a rooftop and a rifle and then home.  Rosa had made it. Katya hadn’t.

 _I should’ve gone with you,_ she thought, wishing for the thousandth time she had a photo, a scrap of handwriting, a hairtie, anything to remember her by.   _I should have fought tooth and nail, argued the mission was too important, anything.  You should have never been alone on that rooftop. Even if you’d still run, we would’ve run together._

   It was like she’d kicked a hornet’s nest, or opened Pandora’s box; ten years she’d forced the memories and terror and pain to the back of her mind, and now that they’d finally seen the light of day there was no forcing them back.  Her head felt like it was buzzing, her eyes gritty and raw, and she leaned forward to mash them against her knuckles as though she could somehow grind the tears to dust.

   A glint of metal caught her eye as she hunched over, catching the bright winter sun through the window.  Natasha’s briefcase. Every Red Room file outside the mansion itself.

   It took her three seconds to make the call.  Morbid curiosity was a hell of a drug.

   Natasha’s voice filtered through the thin walls again, her words indistinguishable but her exasperation clear.  Rosa crouched down, putting the bed between herself and the door just in case. She felt a bit like a child going through her mother’s things, but she couldn’t resist; she didn’t even know how half her sisters had died. Or if any were still out there.

    The lock took five seconds to pick.

   It was far more files than she had counted on, meticulously organized by surname.  Her own name stood out to her immediately, but she ignored it; she was on a strict one trip down memory lane per day limit, and there was nothing in there she didn’t know anyway.  Instead she picked another one out at random, landing on SHARAPOVA, EVA. She’d been delicate even by ballerina standards, a waifish thing with long legs and a doe’s eyes. The best Rosa could tell she’d burned fast and bright, cutting a bloody path through the Baltics before the file ground to an abrupt halt.

> TERMINATION: DECEMBER 2009. TALLINN, ESTONIA.  
>  MISSION FAILED. SUSPECTED PERPETRATOR: AGENT 13 OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

   Feeling mildly sick, she picked out another. BOGDANOVA, KARINA.  She was a bold, brassy little thing, her dancing second only to Natasha’s and her talent in poisons unparalleled.  She’d lasted an impressive amount of time, almost to 2015. Her missions were mostly in South America, pitting rebel groups against each other, making leaders disappear and generally sowing chaos as far as she could.

> TERMINATION: AUGUST 2014. BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA.  
>  MISSION SUCCESS. SUSPECTED PERPETRATOR: CLINT BARTON OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

   Fuck.  Natasha must have known, she would have gone through these files with a fine-toothed comb, but Rosa couldn’t imagine the conversation that must have led to.  Or maybe they’d shoved it down deep inside and never thought about it again. The true Widow way.

   She shifted the files and one fell to the floor with a loud slap, causing her to freeze reflexively.  The other side of the wall had fallen silent at last, however, and after a few tense seconds she felt safe picking it up. It was the thickest file by far, covered in sticky notes, tabs and highlighter.  BELOVA, YELENA. Of course. She hesitated as her fingers closed around the file, but she had a right to know who she was working with. Besides, it was all public record. In a manner of speaking. To a very limited public.

   Fingers buzzing, she opened the file.

   It was enough to turn the strongest stomach, page after page of targets, casualties and collateral spanning decades.  She could see the exact moment Natasha had defected; about two-thirds of the way through the file, the descriptions went from painstaking to ghostly, words like UNKNOWN and UNVERIFIED cropping up more and more frequently.  She had tabs for agencies spanning the globe, from MI13 to MSS, flitting back and forth as she pleased. The best Rosa could tell the only reason Red Room hadn’t had her killed was the hope of new intel whenever she came home to roost.

> ~~TERMINATION: BEIJING, CHINA  
>  ~~ ~~TERMINATION: ABUJA, NIGERIA~~  
>  STATUS: ACTIVE

   Stifling a snort, she carefully closed the file and tucked it away, even though she’d only read a solid half.  The rest was most likely more of the same, and she wasn’t as hardened to this shit as she used to be. There was only one other file even approaching the length of Yelena’s: ROMANOVA, NATALIA.  Somehow this felt worse than Yelena’s; Natasha had worked hard to put her past behind her, after all, and it wasn’t like dredging it all up was going to improve team harmony. But Natasha had legendary, her missions whispered of like a hero in old myths, and she had to know if the stories were true.  With one more quick peek at the door, she set the rest of the files down and cracked open Natasha’s.

   It was by far the most detailed; Rosa could almost picture it, Natasha sitting in some windowless interrogation room with her hands cuffed in front of her and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents circling like wolves, barking question after question as she answered them calmly.  And she thought her confession for the Nine-Nine was bad. She meant to find the mission where she’d defected, see how well it aligned with the propaganda she’d been fed, but she didn’t even make it past the first page.  

> MISSION 1: INITIATION  
>  OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATION OF FAILED AGENT VERNADSKAYA  
>  OBJECTIVE SUCCESSFUL. SOME DISTRESS NOTED AFTER COMPLETION OF PRIMARY OBJECTIVE. RESOLVED IN DEBRIEF.

   She stared.  Read it again. And again. 

> ELIMINATION OF FAILED WIDOW AGENT VERNADSKAYA
> 
> ELIMINATION OF FAILED WIDOW AGENT
> 
> ELIMINATION OF
> 
> ELIMINATION

   The words started to spin and blur, running together as the world dissolved around her.  She faintly registered the file crumpling into her fist, but she could barely hear anything over the roaring in her ears.  Before she even realized what she was doing she was moving, ripping open the door and stumbling into the den.

   “Vasya?” Yelena said, actually sounding startled.  She and Natasha were sitting at the kitchen table, steaming mugs of tea forgotten in their surprise.  Natasha didn’t say anything, but she knew. Rosa could see it in her eyes. “Vasya, what is it?”

   “Did you kill Katya?” she breathed.  Yelena sucked in a breath; Natasha looked away.  “Answer me, Natalia. Did you kill Katya?”

   For a long moment Natasha didn’t answer, simply regarding her, calm and steady.  “Yes. And you would have too.”

   Rosa drew her weapon.  Natasha didn’t so much as flinch.  “She was _nineteen_ ,” she gritted out, aiming the gun between her eyes.  “She was nineteen years old. She was a fucking child!”

   “So was I,” Natasha said softly.

   “I’m sorry, are we pretending we’re not all monsters now?” Yelena broke in.  “Did I miss the part where suddenly everything you’ve ever done was sunshine and roses?”

   “I never killed a kid,” Rosa snarled.

   “Lucky you.” Yelena leaned forward, for once intently serious.  “There is not a person in this room who has survived this long by playing nice.  We did what we had to do to make sure our own heads didn’t end up in the crosshairs.”

   Rosa stood there, chest heaving and gun perfectly steady.  “You didn’t have to kill her. You could have let her escape.  You could have staged it and claimed you dumped the body. You could’ve disappeared too!”

   “If I’d done that we both would have been at the bottom of the Hudson within the week and you know it,” Natasha said, suddenly fierce.  “They wanted to send Dolokhov, you know. Make an example of her. I made sure she didn’t suffer.”

   “What, so I’m supposed to be grateful?”

   “You’re not supposed to be anything, but if you’re going to kill me in cold blood you should at least know the whole story.” Natasha surveyed her, for all the world as though she was the one holding the gun.  “Do what you have to do, Vasya, but you have to know there’s nothing you can say or do that would possibly make me hate myself more than I already do.”

   “My name is _Rosa!_ ” Her finger tightened on the trigger, and she was actually going to do this; she was going to avenge Katya, after all this time.  It wouldn’t even really be murder, just justice. Taking out the trash. Putting down a rabid dog. A killer, a gun for hire, a mindless weapon.  Just like her.

   Fuck. Fuck fucking fuck.

   She jammed the gun in the waistband of her jeans, grabbing at her coat as she stormed from the room.  She didn’t bother checking Natasha’s reaction, but she had time to hear Yelena’s quiet murmur of “And that’s why you were always the best of us” before the door slammed behind her.

   She wasn’t sure how long she walked; she wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just away.  Her eyes blurred and stung, hot tears fighting their way to the surface in spite of herself.  She had just enough dignity left to tip her head back and push them away as she walked, barely managing to avoid slamming into passersby as she forged blindly ahead.  The tangle of anger in her gut had swept through her entire body, making her hands shake and her stomach clench like she was going to vomit. Nineteen years. Nineteen fucking years it had taken to find the truth, and no matter her choice, she’d blown it.

   The will to keep walking left her abruptly, replaced with a bone-deep weariness so powerful she almost stumbled.  Rubbing her eyes, she looked around for a park bench, a bar, anywhere she could just sit for a minute and clear her head.  She’d ended up on a small side street, barely more than a narrow walkway between two buildings. At the end of it was a public square, small but neat and obviously cared for with a fountain in the corner.  There was a group of schoolgirls there, still in their uniforms with their hair braided neatly, playing a high-strung game of Ring-Ring and shrieking with laughter over the fountain. She eased herself down onto a nearby bench, propping her elbows on her knees and bowing her head.  Her hair fell around her face, blocking out the rest of the world and filling her ears with the sound of her breathing. In, out, in, out. She used to sit like this in her bed when she was a little girl, when it all became too much. If she closed her eyes, she could almost be back there, telling herself it was all a bad dream.

   She was still drifting to the sound of her breath when sharp heels clicked on the pavement in front of her.  She didn’t need to look up to know who it was. “Well. And I always thought I had a flair for the dramatic.”

   “Go away, Yelena,” she said through her teeth.  Yelena ignored her, plopping down close enough that their legs brushed as she crossed her ankles.

   “It’s not her fault.  You must know that or we would be scrubbing brains out of the carpet right about now.”

   “Pretty sure Mother Russia can’t hold a gun.”

   “God, you’re such a cop.  I suppose a Svengali defense is out of the question?”

   “Is that how you sleep at night?”

   “Christ, Vasya, do you have any memory of what it was like? Of what they did to us?”

   “I remember everything.”  Her voice broke slightly, and she sank her teeth into her lip until she trusted herself to speak again.  “She was all I had.”

   “I know.  Some of us had less than that. Just because you could speak Russian didn’t guarantee you a place in the ranks.”  She sounded uncharacteristically bitter, and Rosa actually turned to look at her. She was staring straight ahead, a slight droop to her shoulders and clench to her jaw that made her look somehow old.  Rosa had never seen her look tired before.

   “How many of us are even left?”

   “Last I checked? Nine. Maybe fewer.  We lost track of Sveta and Kira.” She nudged Rosa’s knee with her own.  “Then again, we all thought you were dead until a few days ago.”

   Rosa couldn’t help a small smile.  “Optimism’s a good look on you. You should try it more often.”

   “Have to keep you on your toes somehow.”  She turned her attention to the fountain, and for a moment they both were silent.  “We never truly belonged to them, you know. That’s why we’re still alive.”

   Rosa snorted.  “You’ve been theirs for the past twenty years.”

   “Me? I’m no one’s, never have been.  Don’t look at me like that, it suits me.”

   Rosa rolled her eyes, but couldn’t honestly argue.  “And Natalia?”

   Yelena’s lips twitched, and there was real warmth and pride in her voice when she spoke again.  “Natalia was, is and always will be her own. People like her are once in a lifetime.” Her eyes grew distant for a moment, and then she visibly pulled herself back and brushed her shoulder against Rosa’s. “And you. You were Katya’s, right from the start, and when she was gone, you went with her.  They held onto you as long as they could, but we all knew.” Her voice snapped back to its usual brisk tone. “Just like we all knew Katya was going to fail.”

   Rosa whipped around furiously, but Yelena just sighed impatiently.  “Oh, stop it, Vasya. You had eyes, you saw it as well as the rest of us.  There are girls who thrive in the classroom and girls who thrive in the field, and we all knew which she was.  She was hanging by a thread even before the graduation ceremony. She was dead the second that little girl got out of the car, Natalia just finished the job.”

   Rosa looked down at her hands, the sick feeling of age-old guilt unfurling in her stomach.  “It’s my fault,” she rasped. “I knew she was depressed, I should have –”

   “Should have what? Brought her to the kindly KGB psychiatrist?  Broken her out to starve in the snow? Maybe put her out of her misery yourself? She’s dead, Vasya, and the last thing she saw was a friend.  It’s time for both of you to rest.”

   Even as her brain rebelled against the words, something deep in her stomach loosened, like a long forgotten snarl that had finally been smoothed away.  She sighed deeply, letting her forehead fall forward to rest on her hands. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

   Yelena shrugged.  “Maybe we need Natalia if we’re going to complete this mission.  Maybe I’m actually capable of human emotion on occasion. Or maybe if you kill Natalia I’ll be forced to kill you, and blood does not come out of this shirt.”  She stood up, dusting her jeans off and extending a hand. “Come on, pity party’s over. Time to get to work.”

   Rosa hesitated, but accepted the offered hand and hauled herself to her feet.  “Sounds good.” She chewed on her tongue, but what the hell, she’d already had the most embarrassing day of her life.  “Alyona?” Yelena, who had already started walking back toward their hotel, turned back in surprise. “Thank you.”

   Yelena faltered slightly, eyebrows raised.  “Alyona. There’s one I’ve not heard in a while.”

   “Yeah, well,” Rosa said, looking at the little girls playing by the fountain, “us sisters gotta stick together, right?”

 

* * *

 

   They made their way back in silence.  Natasha hadn’t moved from the couch, sitting with her legs crossed and her head bowed.  She met Rosa’s eyes when the door opened, silently questioning; Rosa turned away, making a point of flicking on the safety before throwing her gun on the bed.  As good a peace offering as she felt like making tonight.

   “Tomorrow,” she said, her back still to the others.  “We do it tomorrow. 0330.”

   She could _feel_ the significant look passing behind her back and closed her eyes to avoid rolling them.  “It takes forty-eight hours for everyone to assemble, and that will give them seventy-two,” Yelena pointed out.  “They should all be there.”

   “The longer we wait the more time they have to figure out that none of them sent that summons,” Rosa said firmly.  “Tomorrow. We’re doing this.”

   There was a long silence in the room, finally broken by Natasha.  “Well then,” she said, voice gravelly but determined, “I guess we better get started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple things:
> 
> First, credit where credit is due. I have no idea where that "I am one of twenty-eight ballerinas with the Bolshoi / I am one of twenty-eight Black Widows with the Red Room" quote came from, but I see it all over tumblr and thought it would be a good Easter egg. If anyone can provide me the initial source so I can credit them, that would be appreciated.
> 
> Secondly, about that "graduation ceremony" . . .  
> Look, my feelings on Age of Ultron are vast and many and have no place here. But suffice to say my personal headcanon is that the ceremony did not involve sterilization, and I will not be addressing any further issues with bodily autonomy or consent in this story. I am very aware that the "training" these girls would have had to endure most likely involved some form of sexual assault (see _Red Sparrow_ for a good example of this). However, I am a firm believer that if you do not have the time or experience to discuss something in your works, you should not attempt it, and I'd really rather keep this thriller-y than make it a dark deconstruction. If anyone feels I should add a trigger tag for the brief mention of Katya's discomfort, I will, but that's as far as I'll be digging into that in this particular story. All (civil) comments, critiques and discussions of this are appreciated.
> 
> Thanks so much for your patience, y'all! Almost there! (Sort of)


	8. Shpiony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! Thank you SO MUCH for your patience, you have no idea how chaotic things have been. I fully intend to finish this and am still working as hard as I can with the holidays coming up. Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> PS I am very much editing as I go, so Madame Bolkonsky is now Madame Larina. Hope I remember to go back and correct that later.

   Winter in  the Kola Peninsula was the stuff of folktales.  Harsh layers of frost gilded the gnarled trees silver, giving them a delicate shine that belied the raw strength it took to survive such cold.  The snow was pristine, unmarked by feet or wings or creatures of any kind. The air itself seemed to glow, a blue-white light rising from the ice to make the night seem bright and expectant.  It was a place that a bear-prince or a witch with a chicken-legged house could have comfortably called home. A land of enchantment and terror alike.

   And from that land rose the _Krasnaya Komnata_.

   A young orphan girl might have mistaken it for a castle; from the outside the manor was splendid, ornate, a monument to the grandeur of the Russian czars.  It was the magnum opus of three separate architects, none of whom had seen the others’ blueprints and each of whom had died mysteriously after its completion.  The result was a twisting, turning sprawl with staircases that led to nowhere and windows unreachable from the inside. Its Soviet roots could hardly be disguised, however, especially with the thick concrete fence patrolled by twelve guards.

   Usually patrolled by twelve, rather.  Around three that morning, they had begun disappearing one by one, snuffed out quiet as candles.  The night was so dark no one inside saw the bodies fall. Or the three lithe forms in snow camouflage slipping over the gate.

   “Hurry up,” Rosa hissed, pressing herself deeper into the snow drift.  It had taken them ninety seconds longer than projected to find a genuine window, and their time before the guard change was limited.

   “Have a little patience,” Yelena murmured, wholly absorbed in her task.  “If we set this off it’s over before it begins . . . Ah.” She slid two final pieces into place on the old window, set a Bite against the frame, and zapped it.  There was a loud _click_ , and she slid the window ajar.  “After you, ladies.”

   “I go,” said Natasha, sliding a hand over Yelena’s shoulder as she readied herself.  Her only tell was her breath, puffing in front of her slightly faster than the trek from their snowmobiles warranted.  She disappeared into the mansion, leaving Yelena and Rosa barely breathing. The silence was nearly unbearable.

   “Clear,” she finally whispered in their earpiece, and Yelena visibly relaxed.

   “Me next,” she breathed.  She slipped inside without a sound.  “Clear.”

   And with one last deep breath and a look at the clear sky above, Rosa dropped into the Red Room.

   It was like falling through time.  The hallway she landed in was bathed in muted light from – _fuck’s sake_ – gas lights mounted high on the crimson walls.  She recognized it instantly: the debrief corridor, first place reported to after a mission.  The offices around her were locked for the night, although one of them was humming mysteriously.That was new.  A data bank, maybe. She’d have to keep Yelena away from that one, she reflected as she let her camouflage fall to the ground.

   The Widow suit fit her as well as it had at nineteen.  Instead of her gun she had a canister of accelerant in her holster; not a single bullet, they’d all agreed.  Her only weapons were the Bites at her wrists and the knives in her boots. Well, and the throwing knives tucked into her belt.  A gift from Gina on her last birthday. Natasha and Yelena would probably laugh if they saw those glorified butter knives, but having something from the Nine-Nine made her feel better.

   She set the Bites to high and clenched her fists to  watch them crackle.

   “Everyone set?” Natasha said lowly, winding her garotte for an easy draw.   Heart in her throat, Rosa nodded. “Then let’s –”

   Every single door burst open at once, light flooding the hall so that Rosa was almost blinded.  She whipped around for the window but it was slammed shut, cutting off their escape. And with the sounds of a half-dozen guards drawing their weapons and setting their sights, there was the nudge of a fist at the back of her head, the hum of electricity beneath it unmistakable.

   “Hands up, if you please.”

   Fury blazed through Rosa, as much at herself as the situation.  Dammit. _Dammit._  She should have known.  “Yelena, you lying bitch,” she snarled, instinctively raising her hands behind her head.  Beside her Natasha let out a soft groan.

   “Spare yourself the theatrics, darling, you know how the game is played.  Walk, if you please.” She shoved at them lightly with her Bites. “To the foyer, ladies, our welcome party should be all set up.”

   They made their way through the hallway together, Yelena at their backs, guards surrounding them the entire way.  It was almost flattering. At a glance the Red Room had hardly changed in their absence; same rigid silence, same arched hallways and baroque decor.  Even the wallpaper was the same, a crimson floral design that almost disguised the hourglass at its center. Rosa, however, knew the mansion like the back of her hand, and as they passed the false stairways and circled the labyrinthine halls, details began to jump out at her.  A layer of dust on the settee that never would have been allowed to stand. Faint scuffs and chips in the immaculate lacquer. A creaking floorboard, peeling wallpaper, a stain on the sideboard. The pride of the motherland had seen better days.

   The only thing that seemed well-maintained was the guard’s weapons. No matter; at the end of the day, they were hired help, elite but standard military.  She was more worried about the snake holding an electric chair to her throat.

   She let her elbow knock against Natasha’s twice.   _Now?_

   Natasha’s foot skimmed hers.   _Not yet._  She had a point; at least half of the doors around them were genuine, and even if they could take Yelena there was no guarantee another agent wouldn’t join her.  Wait for the opening. There was always an opening.

   They passed through a doorway disguised as a wall hanging and emerged in the foyer, the guards fanning out in front of them.  Rosa took it all in instantly: the sweeping staircase she had skittered down countless times as a child. The armed guards resting with their fingers on the trigger.  The Persian rug with the suspicious dark stain on one corner. And at the center of it all, Madame Larina, in a crisp black uniform with a scarlet smile on her face.

   “Welcome home, Agent Romanova, Agent Petrova,” she said.  A kick to the back of their legs forced them to their knees before her.  “As always, Yelena, your results continue to impress.”

   “Thank you, Madame,” she said, slipping into parade rest.

   “Comrade Raskolnikov was not part of the plan,” Madame said, not quite a question.

   Yelena shrugged.  “I made the decision that seemed safest at the time.  The line between asset and liability is thin, Madame, and Comrade Raskolnikov had crossed that line too many times.”

   Larina’s eyes hardened, even as she smiled.  “Wise words, little bird. You would do well to remember them.”

   Something flickered in Yelena’ face, but she merely inclined her head.  Satisfied, Larina turned her gaze to her prisoners. “Rosa now, is it? Or should I call you Detective Diaz?  I believe I have you to thank for the doubling of my duties.”

   “Good to see you, Madame,” Rosa said sweetly, feeling her lip curl in content.  “I always wanted to tell you to go fuck yourself in person.”

   One of the soldiers yanked her hair cruelly enough to make her eyes water.  She bit down against a grunt of pain, refusing to give them the satisfaction.  Larina only laughed. “I knew you’d be back, child. You never did know how to leave the past behind.  You surprise me though, Natalia. Sentiment was never your fancy.”

   “Just following orders, Madame,” Natasha said, lifting her chin.  “As you taught me.”

   “Hmm.”  Madame surveyed her with a critical eye, lingering on the glimmer of gold visible beneath her collar.  “My star pupil has grown soft. You’ve been letting the American play games with your head.”

   “Well, the old games were getting a bit boring.”  Her hair got a similar treatment. She rolled her eyes.

   “In that case, allow me to propose a new game.”  She folded her hands in front of her, suddenly brisk.  “First, my agents will extract any and all valuable intel you may have.  I understand you’re unlikely to surrender any, but it will be good practice for the girls, and we’ve theorized several new methods that require a practical demonstration.”  Rosa’s blood ran cold. “You will tell us everything – or don’t, not that it matters – and then you will fulfill your role by being shot behind the practice range. As a token of good faith for your tenure as agents, we will send a lock of your hair to any loved ones you wish.  Your bodies will then be placed in the Unmarked Graves alongside your fallen sisters.”

   Dread was seeping into Rosa’s stomach like fog.  She knew exactly the kind of demonstrations she’d be subjected to, and while she had nothing worthwhile to surrender, she’d be in no shape to run once they were finished.   _Not yet,_ she thought, her eyes darting around for a gap, an opening, a split second of inattention she could use to her advantage.   _We have little girls counting on us, please, not yet._

   “Pushkin, Chekhov, prepare the basement.  Bulgakov, Pelevin, escort and prepare the prisoners.  Sorokin, wake the girls and brief them on their assignment.  Yelena, you may return to your chambers and rest. We will not require your presence until morning.”

   “Thank you, Madame,” Yelena said, and shot her.

   She managed three rounds to the chest before Rosa realized she should fucking move; she hit the ground rolling just in time to avoid a bullet to the head, ripping her knives from her boots.  She sliced out at Pushkin before he could shoot Natasha, who whipped out her garotte and slung it around his neck. Yelena fired, fired again, bullets slamming into Larina even as she fell limp to the ground.  Chekhov turned on her but Rosa wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed a Bite to his head. Electricity snapped and he crumpled. A Terry-style disarm and a dislocated shoulder and Sorokin joined him. She’d run this drill before.

   Natasha was slamming Bulgakov’s head to the wall, four others on the ground. All down but –

   “Got a runner!” Natasha called, taking off after a guard scrambling for the wall alarm.

   Rosa whipped out a Gina knife.  Pelevin fell to the ground with it buried in his back, and Natasha finished him off.

   Yelena was still standing, shoulders heaving and gun pointing at Madame’s prone form.  “Never again,” she said, speaking mostly to herself. “Never fucking again, you vile, monstrous sow.”  She lowered the gun to spit at the body. “See you in hell.”

   There was a moment of silence, and Natasha put a hand on her shoulder.  “Someone will have heard that.”

   Yelena tossed her hair, and the sleek facade was back.  “We were expecting an execution, remember? If they do come to check it will hardly be urgent.  Just enough time for us to get started.”

   “The plan?” Rosa asked tersely.

   “Still . . . mostly intact,” Natasha said.  “Fourteen down, eighteen to go?”

   For half a second, Rosa flashed back to a different lifetime, where her catsuit was a sweatshirt and her bullets were paintballs.  “Bottle of Stoli to whoever gets the most.”

   Yelena flashed her a wild smirk.  “You’re on.”

   “Just go,” Natasha said, exasperated.  “They exchanged one last heavy look, collectively decided against goodbyes, and split off.  Natasha to the north wing, Yelena to the south, and Vasya to the east. Each of them sprayed a thin stream of accelerant behind them.

   In a palace at the end of the world, princesses slept and gasoline dripped as three ghosts made their way down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if that was a short one, but the next chapter will be too long for them to be together and I wanted to finally spit this one out before freaking Christmas. Any comments or constructive criticism always appreciated! Love y'all


End file.
